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1? 




The frontispiece engraving, together with the finales and bor- 
ders in this volume, are used by the courteous permission of 
Messrs. George Barrie & Sons, of Philadelphia, Pa., holders of 
copyright. 



Gbe 



Steeper Harmonies 

Hnb ©tber fl>oems 




A BOOK OF VERSES 

& & J> ESSAYS AND SELECTIONS J> J> * 

By 
GEORGE F. VIETT 



FREE-LANCE PUB. CO., 

Norfolk, Va. 

Press of W. T. Barron & Co. 



i a ■ s 









x 11° 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 






Two Cooies Received 

MAY 25 1906 






/^ Copyright Entry 
CLASS Z£? XXc. N«. 
COPY B. 




Copyright 1905 




by 




George Frederic Viett 






A plodding pilgrim in the realm of rhyme, 

A "star struck" singer of this sunny clime, 

An humble private in poetic ranks, 

Now craves your pleasure, and would hail your thanks. 

Grant him at least but room amid the throng 

To pour the passion of his simple song ; 

And still believe though varied be his line 

Sincerely and poetically— thine. 

— The Author. 



God is the Perfect Poet, 

Who in creation acts his own conceptions. 
— ROBERT BROWNING. 



Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line, 
And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine. 
— ALEX. POPE. 



Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature; brings back the 
freshness of youthful feeling; revives the relish of simple pleasures; 
keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of 
our being; refines youthful love; strengthens our interest in human 
nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings; and, 
through the brightness of its prophetic Aisions, helps faith to lay hold 
on the future life. — W. E. CHANNING. 



A "poet" is a word soon said; 
A book's a thing soon written. Nay, indeed, 
The more the poet shall be questionable, 
The more unquestionably comes his book! 
— MRS. BROWNING. 



Poets are the true seers. They discern the 
truths which the science of after centuries 
demonstrates. — M. 31. CASS, Jr. 



Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong 
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song. 

— KEATS. 



There is a pleasure in poetic pains, 
Which only poets know. 

— COWPER. 



DEDICATED 

Ea ®fj? ilemnrg at 

MRS. FANNIE VIRGINIA MILLER, 

A Noble and Self -sacrificing Daughter 

of the Old Dominion; 
In grateful recognition of the generous 
encouragement received from her dis- 
tinguished son, 

HUGH GORDON MILLER. 



r^v^^ ^ww^ w-Y/- "y ^ww ^ 



'^^mi^^WW^Mli^^'n 



10 



POETRY. 

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the 
happiest and best minds. We are aware of evanescent visitations of 
thought and feeling - , sometimes associated with place or person, some- 
times regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforseen 
and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all ex- 
pression; so that even in the desire and the regret they leave, there 
cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its 
object. 

It is, as it were, the interpenetration of a diviner nature through 
our own; but its footsteps are like those of a wind over the sea, which 
the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain only, as on the 
wrinkled sand which paves it. These and corresponding conditions of 
being are experienced principally by those of the most delicate sensi- 
bility and the most enlarged imagination; and the state of mind pro- 
duced by them is at war with every base desire. The enthusiasm of 
virtue, love, patriotism, and friendship is essentially linked with such 
emotions; and whilst they last, self appears as what it is, an atom to 
a universe. 

Poets are not only subject to these experiences as spirits of the 
most refined organization, but they can color all that they combine 
with the evanescent hues of this ethereal world. A word, a trait, in 
the representation of a scene or a passion will touch the enchanted 
chord, and reanimate, in those who have ever experienced these emo- 
tions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past. 

Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful 
in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the 
interlineations of life, and, veiling them, or in language or in form, 
sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy 
to those with whom their sisters abide — abide, because there is no 
portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit 
into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations 
of the divinity in man. — SHELLEY. 




II 



CONTENTS OF PART FIRST. 



"The Deeper Harmonies," Verses and Essays, 

By George F. Viett. 

A Battle Picture 113 

A Grievance 50 

A Poet's Plaint 95 

America 61 

Ancient, Honorable, Welcome! 132 

At Eventide 102 

City of Brotherly Love, The 162 

Contemplation 74 

Courtship of Death 104 

Dominus Vobiscum 180 

End of the Century Eclipse 138 

Easter Triumphant 93 

Flitting Fancies, part 1 28 

Flitting Fancies, part 2 v 164 

Hail ! Brither Poets A' 16 3 

He That Aspireth 127 

I Fain Would Unburden 86 

In Fancy's Realm 125 

In Memoriam, a Maiden 140 

Isle of the Heart's Desire 112 

Love's Admiration 157 

Love Contrary 35 

Loves of Shakespeare, The 6 8 

Love Transcendent 52 

Marriage of Hunger and Thrist, The 159 

Melancholy's Musing 83 

Melody of Springtime 5 4 

Minor Chords 116 

Modern Writers and Reviewers 147 

Moonlight Madrigal 82 

Music of Human Hearts 8 5 

Newsboy's Address 131 

Night's Enchantment 71 



12 

No "Neglected Burns" Am 1 40 

Not Forgotten 134 

O, Muse! Sweet Starry Goddess! 175 

Parting, The 94 

Plant Me a Tree 115 

Pleasure and Content 92 

Poet's Pilgrimage, The 15 

Reverie * 63 

Robert Burns, a Tribute r. 59 

Sad Is the Song of the Sea 133 

Seaside Repartee 174 

See That You Keep the Fountains Clear 97 

Shakespeare 88 

Some Fifteen Years Ago 4 2 

Sometimes Think of Me 77 

Spring's Lamentation 48 

Still Waters 26 

St. Michael's Bells at Charleston, S. C 143 

Sunshine Tomorrow 3 9 

Sweet Friend of My Youth 8 7 

The Challenger 7S 

The Deeper Harmonies 6 6 

The Mariners 100 

The Man With the Great Control 69 

The Passing Line of Grey 145 

The Phantom Ship 3 5 

The Soul's Return 91 

The Spoilers' 169 

The Temple of Mammon 129 

The Tide That Serves 37 

Thou Beside Me Singing 56 

To Annie C 143 

To a Brother Rhymster 142 

To a First-Born Child 5 8 

To Frank Foster 142 

To a Sympathetic Stranger 172 

To My Sister 118 

To William I. Jones 142 

Uncle Sam, His Home and Flag 137 

Under Two Flags 6 5 

Virginia Salutamus! 155 

'Watchman, What of the Night? 119 

When Sets My Sun 6 7 

William McKinley, In Memoriam 122 

Work For the Daylight Waneth 136 

ESSAYS — 

Easter 181 

Paderewski 182 

Poetry 197 

Robert Burns 186 



13 



Jlrrfar?. 



A considerable number of the original poems in this volume have 
heretofore appeared in a little work bearing the title — 

"Thou Beside Me Singing, and Other Poems," 

and written during the decade preceding its copyright date of 1900. 

There were but six hundred copies printed and the work had the 
unique distinction of being the first original book of poems published 
in the United States in the twentieth century. It was accorded an ex- 
ceedingly kind reception, and several hundred additional copies were 
subsequently struck off yearly from the original plates, to supply a 
small but steady demand from local and ovitside sources. This, it is, 
has prompted the present venture, and in presenting 

"The Deeper Harmonies, and Other Poems,'' 

the author does so with the satisfaction of having been able to embody 
the results of a maturer judgment in the items of revisions, elimina- 
tions, and additions. 

In this publication the writer presents about a fourth part of what 
he has regarded his serious work, and therefore offers the best of 
which he is capable and the cream of many years of literary effort and 
aspiration. In this regard, he claims at least credit for the virtue that 
lies in discreet elimination or expurgation, a virtue, indeed, that seems 
to be utterly neglected in these book-a-day times. 

Conscious alike of competency and limitations, he has chosen the 
former as his warrant of publication, with the hope that a discerning 
public will approve of his judgment. 

Sincerely, THE AUTHOR. 




14 




"And they who once have seen her face, 
Strange benisons are granted." 



Page 







m 



M 





Zhc poet's pilgrimage. 



AN INTRODUCTION. 

Through the land of Solitude, 
O'er the dreaming flowers, 
To the ''Fane of Fancy Free" 
Girt with restful bowers. 

Through vernal ways of Solitude, 
Warm with Heavenly fire; 
Rich in goodly plentitude, 
He found the "Heart's Desire." 

& H: & Jk 

Disqualified by fiat of Fate 
To follow Fashion's flock, 
Lamenting o'er my lonely state 
There came a modest knock 

Upon the door that led outside 
To ways of noise and din, 
I rose — and threw it open wide, 
A lovely Dame walked in! 

Of pensive eye and gracious mien, 
Of stately form divine ; 
Methought that never had I seen 
One of such glance benign. 



16 

THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

"Lady pardon me," I said, 
"Wherefore your mystic call, 
My friends are few, none such as you 
E'er grace my humble hall." 

"I come" said she, "with gifts in hand, 
Which you will not refuse, 
I come from an Enchanted Land! 
For know — I am your Muse! 

"The lines upon thy brow doth show 
Much saddened contemplation; 
To change thy state I come, and bring 
A kindlier dispensation. 

Again you'll wade in crystal streams, 
Again you'll roam the wild wood; 
Again you'll dream untainted dreams, 
The dreams of sweetest childhood. 

And like incense of the morning, 
Like the perfume of the rose; 
Like the day dreams of the dreamer, 
So shall come thy heart's repose. 

And a singer, thou shalt linger 
Where divinest music swells; 
Music that comes dripping, dripping; 
Drop, by drop, from Heavenly wslls. 



THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

And many hearts to music set, 
And many souls to song; 
But thou alone shall voice the strain 
Of all the surging throng. 

Thou shalt read the revelation 
'Tween the lines of nature's lore, 
That this world is but a station 
On the road of "Evermore." 

I will take thee from the borders 
Of the dreary realm of Death, 
To airy fields of light romance; 
Within a single breath. 

I will tune thy soul to music 
Which a Seraph might surprise, 
Lying lighter on thy list'ning ear 
Than love in lover x s eves. 



Music, which the Maker, 
When the world had made its choice, 
Left us in this pit of darkness 
As remembrance of his voice. 

And sometimes sad the music, 
That on thy soul shall sound, 
Sad and soft as tears that fall 
On a baby's tiny mound. 





18 

THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Yet, thou shalt hear with equal cheer 
What time the earth is riven, 
The deaf'ning boom of the Bell of Doom! 
And the silvery chimes of Heaven. 

The Poet's path is paved with pain, 
And well indeed thou'lt know it; 
But he must falter not, who'd gain 
The "star born" name of "Poet." 

The firmer fortitude that finds 
A way, though barriers loom; 
I give thee, and of many kinds 
Shall be thy garden's bloom. 

A Freelance in the Realm of Rhyme,, 
Take my u poetic rage," 
And in the tourney-field of Time, 
Well thou thy lance engage. 

Metallic strain of baser ore 
The precious ones pollute; 
Thy pen, a wand of alchemy, 
All potent to transmute. 

I charge thee take Sin's challenge up 
When in thy face 'tis flaunted; 
And though perhaps thou fight alone, 
Fight on! fore'er undaunted. 



19 
THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

"A Poet! Poor misguided youth!" 
Heed little what they name thee; 
Thou'lt dignify thyself and friends, 
And make them proud to claim thee. 

And no black art shall be thy part, 
No trick, or necromancy; 
Thou'lt send abroad with Wisdom's chart 
Bright children of thy fancy. 

Continued though thy toil may be, 
Make no mistake about it, 
The functions of great Destiny 
Were incomplete without it. 

While waging war with weariness, 
Despair may o'er thee creep; 
Ask then the blessed armistice, 
The armistice of "sleep." 

But in thy strife with weariness. 
Fight to the latest breath; 
For know — surrender simply is 
Another name for Death! 

Should proud Contumely bruise thy heart 
And thy lone spirit fret; 
Know that it is the better part 
To pardon — and forget. 



20 

THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

What though the envious should annoy, 
By Malice all directed; 
And claim thy gold full of alloy? 
This too, — must be expected. 

He that seeks the sea's clear depths, 
Cares nought for muddy shallows. 
He that hides no blood stained hands, 
Fears not the gloomy gallows. 

And though the lingering shadows flit, 
You'll read the promise glorious, 
Of brighter day divinelier lit, 
When Right shall be victorious! 

And this you'll know though earth bestow, 
Neglect, reproach upon thee; 
The chosen few will shed the dew 
That Heaven above wills on thee. 

"So go, dear Protege of mine. 
And in thy fancy free, 
I'll take thy hand, and half divine 
My blessings are," said she. 

And then she left me, this fair dame, 

But always at my yearning 

She comes, and fans the smouldering flame 

That's ever in me burning. 



21 
THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Therefore I've trod where Poets tread, 
I've felt their joy and sorrow; 
I've searched the blue sky overhead, 
And probed the mystic 'morrow. 

I've wandered ways where few intrude, 
I've read signs deeply hidden; 
I've broke the world's great solitude 
Alone, and all unbidden. 

I've followed where bright Fancy led, 
And much his light did borrow; 
I've learned the lore of "Yesterday" 
"To-day," but not "To-morrow." 

Once at the shrine of Nature I 

Did pray for keener vision; 

And learned with many a heart-felt sigh, 

The best, I had been given. 

I've swirled in whirl of trouble's tide, 
Through the land of Desolation, 
But anon I crossed the harbor wide, 
To the haven — Consolation. 

Tempestuous is the sea of life, 
Lashed 'neath Misfortune's blows; 
But still the tide Serenity, 
Flows by the shore Repose. 



22 

THE POETS PILGRIMAGE. 

I've scratched my name on the gates of Fame, 
As many have done before me; 
But with pass unsigned, and meagre claim, 
I fear the proud Dame will ignore me. 

I've drained of the bitter of desolate creeds, 
That many have sought to prove me; 
But I drink now of One that serves all needs, 
And have no false gods o'er me. 

Wisdom comes with the waning years, 
By heedless youth retarded, 
At last through a vista of trouble and tears, 
She comes to be regarded. 

Pride dwelt some little time with me, 
Would perhaps have lingered longer, 
But humiliation came, and she 
Found Pride was not the stronger. 

Ambition came, my heart did flame! 
I joined his maddening race; 
But found at last it was too fast 
For my poor cripple's pace. 

Close communion with cross Care, 

At last to us discloses 

The fact, that life, though sometimes fair, 

Is not a bed of roses. 



23 
THE POETS PILGRIMAGE. 

No stranger though to Joy I've been, 
I've roamed some happy sands; 
I've known the love of kindly kin 
And touch of baby hands. 

Sweet suppliant to the throne of Grace, 
My Loved one went before me, 
And so robbed Death of half his sting, 
Such doth my love assure me. 

Calamity, Remorse, Regret; 
Those nettles in life's garden; 
Must line the path of care and fret 
That leads to Land of Pardon. 

Though poverty made me acquaint' 
With pangs of deprivation; 
Yet still I read, though sore and faint, 
'Twas for my soul's salvation. 

And though Affliction's blighting hand 
Is ever to me clinging; 
It serves to open wide my mind 
And set my soul to singing. 

Brimful of sympathy the heart 
That guides the Poet's pen; 
The one who sings the better song, 
Must love his fellow men. 



24 

THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

That "God is Love" all things above 
And in this lowly station, 
Attest indeed, and of that truth 
Make wondrous confirmation. 

Sometime, Somewhere, there's recompense, 
And if not "Here," "There" it must be; 
And it shall come, though clouds are dense, 
Sometime, Somewhere. 

And whether 'tis the heaving wave, 
Or mankind's ways I scan; 
I find the soul-delight I crave 
In reading God's great plan. 

I read that Justice underlies 
Each path, and part, and portion; 
And that the creed this truth denies 
Was born of Sin's abortion. 

The grasping hand that never gives, 
Must know some restitution; 
The soul that all sin sodden lives 
Must meet with retribution. 

The murderer can never lie 

In peace by his poor victim, 

If this world's court he passes by, 

There's One that will convict him. 



25 



THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE. 

And so good friends, you sought to know 

Why I became a Poet; 

I trust that to your vision keen 

This little book will show it. 



Through the Land of Solitude, 
O'er the dreaming flowers; 
To the Fane of Fancy Free, 
Girt with restful bowers. 

Through vernal ways of Solitude, 
Warm with Heavenly fire; 
Rich in goodly plentitude, 
I found the "Heart's Desire." 




STILL WATERS. 



Beyond the clouds the stars are shining-, 
Check despair with sturdy will; 
Beneath those waves in fury raging 
Are placid depths, — forever still. 
Sore beset and heavy laden, 
For thy soul there seems no haven; 
The world doth mock at thy distress, 
The heart of man seems merciless. 
But stars still shine beyond the clouds, 
Weary pilgrim mount the hill; 
Thou shalt see stretched out in splendor 
Placid depths, — forever still. 



Pilgrim, Peace! the rainbow's set, 
He will give His loved ones rest; 
From a world of care and fret 
God will call when He thinks best. 
What though life be dark and dreary, 
There is rest for all that weary. 
If righteousness hath been thy guide 
Then is the whole world vain beside. 
Pilgrim, Peace! the rainbow's set 
O'er a world of care and fret. 
God will give His loved ones rest 
When He deemeth it is best. 



STILL WATERS. 

Along the path of high endeavor, 
We learn the truths He would instill; 
Beneath the raging conflict ever 
Are God's own depths, — forever still. 
Pilgrim sad! and Pilgrim weary! 
What though life be chill and dreary? 
He that marks the sparrow's fall 
Is Lord of one and Lord of ail. 
Keep the path of high endeavor, 
Learn the truths He would instill; 
Beneath the raging conflict ever 
Are placid depths, — forever still. 

The tempest's voice is full of woe, 
Its blast is cold, and drear and chill; 
But 'neath the mantle of the morning 
Are placid depths, — forever still. 
Angry waves would overwhelm, 
But Christ himself is at the helm; 
There's haven for the storm tossed soul, 
From world of shame is won the goal. 
Beyond the tears that ebb and flow, 
Beyond the tempest's voice of woe, 
Is seen the purpose of His will, 
And placid depths, — forever still. 



JMttttng iFanrtes. 

A line of disconnected thought on things sentimental, satirical, 
philosophical and humorous ; after the style of Cowper. 



A cheerful face — not one of woe 
Will find for you as on you go, 
The line of least resistance. 
The road may be both rough and long, 
But laughter interspersed with song 
Will dwarf the distance. 



The crystal stream with flowers decked 
Will not the smile of Heaven reflect 
If stirred the mud below. 
Then wherefore should we stir contention, 
And cause vain turmoil and dissension? 
Perhaps make a friend a foe. 

Time was when hogs content with swill 
Of that alone would take their fill 
Serene in swinedom boarding. 
The modern hog's a. different breed 
He know's a flower from a weed, 
And dines according. 



29 
FLITTING FANCIES. 

So if you pen some matter bright 
Be sure and get a copyright, 
Or you may loss bemoan. 
Reject with scorn, then without fear 
Some chap will publish your idea 
As substance quite his own. 



Not that I would presume to say 
That I have suffered much this way — ■ 
Yet have upon occasion. 
For some there are who do not shirk 
To steal their neighbor's mental work 
By turning- and abrasion. 



"Silence is golden," wrote the sage, 
But fools have lately scanned his page 
And caught his meaning; 
So now to silence they're inclined, 
With tether on their tongues they find 
Convenient screening. 



So all you hear where'er you go 
Is surly "Yes,'' or snubby "No." 
For all the fools are wary. 
With affectation's garb content 
They see no reason to augment 
Their scant vocabulary. 



30 

FLITTING FANCIES. 

My aim is high — a shining mark; 

Xor would I choose vocation dark 

To change my poor condition. 

To dignify myself and friends 

By that rare grace which poetry lends, 

Is sure' a chaste ambition. 



I've seen a work of merit pass 
Unheeded, by some pompous ass 
In high position. 

One weakness of this glorious nation, 
Is setting fools above their station; 
A sad condition. 



I've found the educated snob 
Whose envy does his reason rob, 
An oft' vexation; 

He thinks that he has power to ban! 
But never was a foolish man 
More sad' mistaken. 



The age and place we should deplore, 

Where talent tramps from door to door 

In hard probation ; 

And find the frequent parvenu 

Inflicting from his narrow 7 view, 

Humiliation. 



31 
FLITTING FANCIES. 



When life has been in folly spent, 

Then comes the time we fain repent 

Of folly's consequences. 

There's much we gladly would unlearn 

When sin we face at every turn, 

To grieve our better senses. 



I sometimes muse and fondly dream 

That I might rise to heights supreme! 

Vain inspiration. 

For then anon with soul afret 

I plainly see my limit set 

In humble station. 



But after all I'll vex me not, 

Nor murmur at my destined lot, 

For Fate is unrelenting. 

And fame and gold are things of earth, 

In sin-strewn soil they had their birth, 

Their lack scarce worth lamenting. 



To walk in wisdom's ways aright, 
One needs must trace a shining light 
Unswervingly consistent. 
Athwart the path of high endeavor 
The world's base ideals stand forever 
Presumptuously persistent. 



3 2 

FLITTING FANCIES. 

Give not your wild and mad acclaim 
To something that is but a name 
'Thout rhyme or reason, 
For sympathy that's fool encased 
Is always sympathy misplaced 
And out of season. 



Pause! and ponder while you pause 
Upon the wisdom in this clause 
From Shakespeare quoted — 
"Brag not, for it must come to pass, 
That every braggart is an ass." 
A truth well noted. 



The false and true make no contact, 

A fact must ever be a fact, 

That's all about it; 

And Truth and Common Sense together 

Are anchors proof for any weather, 

And never doubt it. 



The transient gain a lie may lend 
Avails but little in the end, 
Nor can you claim exemption 
From drafts the Devil draws at sight; 
Hell's credit gets you in a plight 
From which there's no redemption. 



33 
FLITTING FANCIES. 

Clear-eyed Truth, a beauteous dame 
Whose glance puts hypocrites to shame, 
Stands ever near us. 
And with the doubting soul she pleads, 
And pours the balm which Conscience needs; 
To soothe and cheer us. 



I often wonder, when I'm dead 

If vandals o'er my grave will tread 

And steal the flowers. 

And what I'll do the winter through 

(When birds are gone and flowers few) 

To pass away the hours. 



Maybe some industrious mole 
Will make a little deeper hole, 
On me intrude. 

Would that he'd come for pity's sake 
With message from my love; to break 
That solitude. 



I know no greater soul delight, 
Than contemplation 'neath the night 
When glows the Milky Way. 
'Tis then desire and soul surcease 
Blend in with God's eternal peace, 
To make me pray. 



34 



No doubt you're tired of my lament 

Whereat I very much repent 

And ask reprieve. 

But should you not dislike my rhyme, 

We'll meet again some other time 

By your kind leave. 







. ik 



M 



1^S^ 



THE PHANTOM SHIP. 

AVhen Fate sent me into this world 

— In which I've since been stranded, — 
She dished me out a mess of wit 

But left me empty-handed. 
And so I've roamed these many years, 

And much my ware I've marted, 
But my fine ship that long I've sought 

Seems never to have started. 

Some day she will come sailing in 

With favors to advance me, 
When all the bliss of voyaging 

No longer charms my fancy. 
For Joy, and Hope, and Love, and Youth, 

AVill not be there to share them, 
And I could find but sorry cheer 

In ship that did not bear them. 

Alas! again, alas! I say 

For those who dream of beauty 
And all the host of lovely things 

Not on the path of duty. 
They reach at last a storm-struck shore 

Where cruel waves are beating, 
To find a wreck of youthful hopes 

Their last and only greeting. 



LOVE CONTRARY. 

Full long have I loved you 

'Mid pleading and plaint; 

What spirit hath moved you 

My heart to acquaint 

With love sown in gladness, 
With love grown in sadness? 

, With love mown in madness! 

Oh! tell me sweet saint? 



36 

LOVE CONTRARY. 

I love and adore thee 
As no tongue can tell; 
Why wilt thou ignore me 
And hurl me to hell? 

Oh, give me one token! 

One promise soft spoken; 

My heart's yet unbroken, 
Oh, ring not its knell. 



Nay! pause love, and ponder 

Upon my lone state; 

The waste I now wander; 

And thou Heaven's gate! 
Within bells are ringing, 
God's angels are singing, 
See— love's key I'm bringing I 

Oh, bid me not wait. 



Light hearts grown heavy, 

Proud heads have bent; 

Heart links have sundered, 

Relent, love, relent! 
Love unrelenting, 
Love unrepenting, 
Love unlamenting; 

Wherefore such intent? 



37 
THE TIDE THAT SERVES. 

'Mid dark desolation, 
I turn to thee still 
For love's consolation, 
Its joy and its thrill. 

Love soul refining, 

Heaven divining! 

My love declining — 
What is thv sweet will? 



THE TIDE THAT SERVES. 

"The tide went out — " 
Freighted ships of steam and sail 
Turned willing prows from moor and dale, 
'"Went out with the tide." 



The tide went out — 
Some flotsam and jetsam of our days, 
Some driftwood left for other bays, 
Went out with the tide. 



The tide went out — 
The anger pent within our breast 
No longer at its moorings rest, 
On passion's tide went out. 



THE TIDE THAT SERVES. 

The tide went out — 
An aching void with sadness rings, 
Some sweetness in our life took wings 
Went out with the tide. 



Love's tide went out — 

And with it went the pure intent, 

The sweetness in our nature pent, 

The wealth of soul, the proud head bent. 

Went with Love's tide. 



Life's tide went out — 
And many, of this world were free. 
Some day 'twill serve for you — for me, 
We'll drift out to the shoreless sea — 
When our tide goes out. 



The tide came in — 

But the harbor is small, the ocean great 
And some found not the narrow gate, 
Came not in with the tide. 



Love's tide came in — 
And at our feet, its waters fling 
A baby shape, a tiny thing 
Came in upon Love's tide. 



39 



Life's tide came in — 

But none that runs through raging main 

Will serve to bring us back again. 

To haunt again the path of pain, 

No tide will bring us in. 



SUNSHINE TO-MORROW. 

What though the clouds lower in threatening array, 
And the journey is rough through a desolate way? 
Keep on! There'll be time yet for rest and for play, 
The sun may be shining to-morrow. 

Thy burden's perhaps heavy, the way may be long, 
But step forward bravely with laughter and song. 
The world makes a way for the steadfast and strong, 
The sun may be shining to-morrow. 

"There's no use repining," my uncle would say, 
"For where there's a will there's always a way, 
And though it is cloudy and raining to-day, 
The sun may be shining to-morrow." 

When fate pulls against you and leaves you forlorn, 
And you ask why in thunder you ever were born, 
Just go to your bed, arise with the dawn 
To find that the bright sun is shining. 



4 



What seems solid gold may be nothing but gilt, 
There's no use lamenting the milk which is spilt, 
If it wasn't for rain the sweet flowers would wilt, 
To-morrow the sun may be shining. 



If rascals should rob you, and proud men should scorn, 
And make your soul bitter, your heart quite forlorn, 
Forget not, my brother, each night has a morn, 
And to-morrow the sun may be shining. 



After Old Song. 




NO "NEGLECTED BURNS" AM I. 



Whether it be spoke or writ 
I cannot tolerate the wit 
That seeks to make a cruel hit 

At some poor chap's expense; 
It savors much of venom spit, 

And lack of kindlv sense. 



41 



At least as soulful as myself 

I judge my neighbor. Nor his wealth, 

Nor poverty, nor even stealth 

Will serve to change me; 
But when I find him wrapt in self, 

That does estrange me. 



While of my work there may be doubt, 
And while I'm loath my claims to shout 
I'll let your betters find them out, 

And take appeal 
From judgment of a clumsy lout 

By a great deal. 



No poor "neglected Burns" am I, 
Nor Shakespeare in obscurity; 
And while I'm not 'tis plain to see 

A Milton immature; 
Thou, in a fool's security 

Art set, beyond all cure. 



My worth is past your computation, 
From you I need no consolation, 
Why man! you'd make a reputation 

And doubtless make it pay, 
With stuff that from my compilation 

I've long since thrown away. 



11' 



At Byron's bays I've no pretense; 
I like to rhyme and rhyme with sense. 
Let merit judge my competence, 

Whate'er my due. 
And let this be my compliments 

To likes o' vou. 



SOME FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. 

On meeting an old schoolmate and chum after many 
years, far from early scenes. 

Dear Ned, old boy! I'm glad to see your bright familiar 

face, 
It's like a ray of sunshine in this somewhat dreary place; 
Not many friends of boyhood's days now often cross my 

way, 
And they that do I grieve to say, have little time to stay. 



The years have passed between us, Ned, and you and I 

are men, 
And boyish confidence and hopes we'll never share again; 
But still in retrospection there's a chastened, purer joy, 
So let us talk of days pure gold, that needed no alloy. 



13 




1 1 

SOME FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. 

In that sunny city of the South our childhood's days were 

spent, 
Her waters and her woods about, sweet influence have lent 
To make a golden framing for pale memory's silhouette, 
To soothe the care of later years, the heart ache and the 

fret. 

There's the dear old Bennett public school, what scenes it 

does recall 
With its thousand lusty youngsters who knew us one and 

all; 
For a finer set of teachers you might search the wide 

world o'er; 
But one of them I loved the best, God bless her, is no 

more. 

Remember how with bands galore the soldiers marched 

away 
To celebrate George Washington, and on Palmetto day? 
And what a show the old town made in "Gala Week" the 

first, 
It seemed the very cobble stones their ancient bonds 

would burst. 

And when British guns were booming and St. Michael's 

bells did clash, 
And Charleston's troops in gay array did cut a glittering 

dash; 
We were in the crowd that followed them down to the 

Battery seas, 
To cheer Her Royal Highness off, the sweet Princess 

Louise. 



45 
SOME FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. 

Trolley cars! Is that a fact? Why, bless my soul, that's 

news, 
The one mule car was all I knew on streets and avenues; 
They were never in a hurry and along did slowly glide, 
And only those with leisure could afford to take a ride. 



Methinks the boys of our days, these later times can't 

match, 
They play at little girlish games and cry at every scratch; 
How often, Ned, on summer days, two youngsters, you 

with me 
Have taken our frail open boat just fifteen miles to sea? 



Nor did we count it any task to swim a mile or more, 
And stay all day a-catching fish some dozen miles from 

shore; 
And the "kid" that couldn't go to mud in twenty feet of 

sea, 
Was not the kind of "kid" it took to follow vou or me. 



But some there were, our dearest chums, most reckless of 
the lot 

Who striving to excel the crowd their prudence quite for- 
got, 



4 6 

SOME FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. 

And many friends of yours and mine — the boys that we 

loved best, 
Beneath the waves round Charleston Bay, have found 

their last, long rest. 



And you were by my side that night — the earthquake's 

dreadful hour! 
When old St. Michael's bells were tolled, but not by human 

power. 
When Charleston was in ruins spread, with desolation 

sown ; 
That fearful night which in our lives stands out, apart, 

alone. 



But even this brings in a thought of lighter memory, 

So 'neath the music of sweet bells come walk once more 

with me; 
And tell me to what better cause could I devote my 

rhymes 
Than to the soulful music of old St. Michael's chimes? 



And the girls — the Charleston girls we knew, what boots 

it to repeat, 
They were the fairest ones we've met, and all surpassing 

sweet. 
Like summer light, through emerald boughs, their eyes 

would melt to love; 
Their hearts were like the sunny skies that wooed them 

from above. 



47 



Good-bye, Ned! and God bless you! To St. Louis did you 

say: 
Oh, yes, I'm sure you'll meet them there, they're all along 

the way; 
For o'er this land from coast to coast, no matter where 

you roam 
You'll find an exiled Charleston boy, to talk of "Home, 

sweet Home." 



Norfolk, Va., August, i 



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48 



SPRING'S LAMENTATION. 

Yea, Spring has come! The light of golden clays 
Is mellow on bright fields and woodland ways; 
And all the world is beauty newly born, 
And every- living thing hymns forth in praise. 



The splendor of the garden comes again, 
And springtime floods of sunshine and of rain 
Have lured the rose its blushing leaves to spread, 
While feathered songsters sing their soft refrain. 



One year ago I roamed amid the flowers; 

No thought of grief had I; the golden hours 

Sped on, for she was by my side, 

The soft-eyed girl I loved, 'neath emerald bowers. 



This year alas — the flowers seem to say 
''Why walkest thou alone this joyous way, 
Have not we all returned, your friends of yore? 
We wait Her welcome all the happy day." 



"Why comes she not?" the dainty tulip said, 
"Where has she gone?" quoth robin overhead. 
And from the fullness of my bleeding heart I cried 
"Sweet friends, she whom you loved so well — is dead." 



49 
SPRING'S LAMENTATION. 



"And will she not return?" the roses cried, 
"Our lovely friend, who wandered by your side, 
See! all things come to life again, 
And this gulf Death is surely not so wide." 



'Tis true, the spring with magic rare and free, 
Revives all things "with heavenly alchemy;" 
Touches the dead — they quicken and rejoice 
But does not bring my loved one back to me. 



And Spring's bright flowers in the sunlight wave, 
They deck alike the garden — and the grave; 
The old world's young again, with garlands crowned 
But all is naught without the love I crave. 

And so I cannot in the fire of spring 

The desolation of my sad heart fling; 

I would return just one short year ago, 

Or soul to soul, with my dead love take wing. 



After Rubaiyat. 




50 




A GRIEVANCE. 



You're a petulant friend, and you don't serve me right 

Said I to my muse, said T; 
Your visits are short and your coldness does blight, 

Said I to my muse, said T; 
To come with such hurry by day or by night, 
Then leave me disconsolate all of a fright, 
One moment here, the next — out of sight 

It's not at all friendly, said I. 



51 



A GRIEVANCE. 

When sometimes I bungle I think it's a shame, 

Said I to my muse, said I; 
To hint that in body and head I am "lame" 

Said I to my muse, said I. 
And while I consider some "incidents" closed, 
I recall all the confidence in you reposed, 
And feel that you should be more kindly disposed 

Said I to mv muse, said I. 



If I venture to murmur you jump up and leave, 

Said I to my muse, said I; 
You call me a dunce and grant no reprieve, 

Said I to my muse, said I. 
To say that "I'm horribly, fearfully slow," 
Because I can't follow your wonderful flow, 
And leave me with pen in my hand, full of woe 

Is not reassuring, said I. 



You're haughty and proud, and you lead me a dance, 

Said I to my muse, said I. 
I would do fairly well if you'd give me a chance, 

Said I to my muse, said I. 
Beware haughty lady! your temper I'll tame, 
I'll draw on your love and you'll honor the claim; 
We'll live with your mentor — the Goddess of Fame! 

Sighed I to my muse, sighed I. 



52 





LOVE TRANSCENDENT. 

June may come and go with flowers, 
Summer time may pass away; 
Autumn spread her deepening bowers, 
Changing to a winter's day. 
But Love is ever young and fair; 
Days may come and go like flowers, 
Golden tresses of her hair — 
Sweet Love is ever young and fair. 

Press of crowds and stress of trade, 
"The madding throng's ignoble strife," 
Where roses droop their heads and fade 
Lamenting their once purer life. 
But Lcve is ever young and fair. 
The world may age in vain endeavor; 
Though silvered tresses tinge her hair — 
Sweet Love is ever young and fair. 



Summer lands neath summer skies, 
Wild fresh winds and trackless seas; 
The garden where sweet Omar lies; 
Virgin woods and mountain breeze. 
With these Love holds his courtly sway, 
Winds may blow and seas may beat, 
But Love knows every path and way — 
And Love is ever 'young: and fleet. 



53 



Phantom shapes that come and go, 
Breaking hearts that burst in song; 
Memories of the "Long Ago," 
But all save Love will fade anon. 
For Love is ever young and fair, 
Days may fade in gloom or glory; 
Scented tresses of her hair! 
Sweet Love is ever young and fair. 



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54 



THE MELODY OF SPRINGTIME. 

The world's all love and beauty 
With its harp attuned to praise, 
And everything beneath the sun 
Joys in his genial rays. 
On the purple plains of morning 
There's delight we can't define, 
In the shimmer of the star light 
Comes a thought that's all divine. 



All nature is enchanted 

And cries out Rejoice! Rejoice! 

And a thousand feathered songsters 

Blend in with happy voice, 

While the rippling rills are running 

Through their fringed and daisied way, 

Adding melody to music 

Which makes the whole world gay. 



A wandering zephyr sighing 
And reluctant to depart, 
Makes love to all the flowers 
And touches every heart. 



55 



While waving boughs, and insects 
And birds upon the wing 
Join in to make the music 
Of the soulful song of spring. 



And caressing breezes linger 
To kiss the blushing rose, 
While above a feathered singer 
To his mate makes dainty pose. 
And Cupid, wicked Cupid 
Pursues his primrose way, 
With his little bow and arrow 
To seek whom he may slay. 



Oh, this life is sweet in spring time 
When the old world's young again, 
And the heart beats rythmic cadence 
To the ravishing refrain. 
'Tis the great Creator speaking 
In a voice now soft, now strong, 
That sets the soul to music 
And the bursting heart to song. 




56 



'THOU BESIDE ME SINGING." 

Where songsters in the woods their love notes blend; 
Where distant sails upon the ocean bend; 
Tis there I would a thoughtful hour spend 
With "thou beside me singing." 



I care not friend the measure of thy purse, 
I simply would thy kindly thoughts immerse 
In this, and find thee in the cadence of my verse 
"Beside me singing." 



So come with me in paths where none intrude, 
And we will break the world's great solitude; 
And gaze on Nature free, and wild, and nude, 
And hear her secret singing. 



Her song alas — of me, takes scant concern, 
And yields you — not the love for which you yearn. 
More pleasing are her charms we sadly learn 
With loved ones near us singing. 



Nor does she in the woodland — on the wave, 
Give lonely hearts the sympathy they crave; 
Her song is merry o'er our best loved grave! 
A discord to Love's singing. 



57 



THOU BESIDE ME SINGING. 

Lies Omar there! poor ashes of her fire; 
Within her realm he found no "heart's desire." 
Queer shapes of clay with phantom souls! Such choir 
Can rend' but soulless singing. 

Yes, Nature is a cold dame in the end 
If we alone on her for love depend; 
The better we enjoy what she doth lend 
With friends "beside us singing." 

Stark form, set face, heaped o'er with kindred clay, 
This is the tribute You and I must pay. 
She gives, yes — but, alas! she takes away; 
But there's a higher singing. 

And now beneath the glorious Persian sky, 
Lies he whose fretted clay has long been dry; 
Yet while I pause 'mid Persian flowers to sigh, 
Eternal Truth is singing. 



And brother (or perhaps sweet sister) mine, 
Within this book of verse there's many a line 
Which pleads that we before His great white shrine 
Be found — together singing. 





TO A FIRST BORN CHILD. 

From the land of "Heretofore," 
With not a blush of shame, 
To our home this winter day 
An unclad beggar came. 
Strangest part of all to say — 
This little beggar's come to stay, 
And we could not say her nay; 
For she is not to blame. 



She is not learned in worldly ways, 
Pure and undefiled. 
Nothing cares for blame or praise, 
Modest, sweet and mild. 
Little soul from God above, 
Little suppliant for our love, 
Little angel may she prove; 
Beauteous little child. 

Latest pilgrim to the shore 

Of life's restless sea, 

For this I pray and heaven implore 

That fair thy fate may be. 

And when at last thy race is run, 

The little good thy father's done 

At duty's call from sun to sun; 

May all redound to thee. 



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Your laugh is music to my heart 

Joyous little Blanche! 

Your sigh doth make the tear drops start, 

Plaintive little Blanche. 

"May He from Whom all blessings flow" 

A blessing on my child bestow, 

That she may naught but virtue know; 

Her soul — forever "blanche." 

A prayer that was likewise a prophecy; Born February 
9th, 1900; Died August 25th, 1900. 



ROBERT BURNS— A TRIBUTE. 

Though some may joy 'neath Persian skies 

Where flowers are lush and rich in hue; 

For me a softer garden lies 

'Neath Scotland's sun, and Scottish dew. 

And from a tide of empty dreams 

I turn, to quaff of better streams. 

Tis not that I love that the less, 
But 'tis that I love this the more; 
The Persian flowers I caress, 
But Caledonia's bloom adore. 
And as I tread 'mid heath and ferns, 
My gentle guide is Robert Burns. 



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The flowers whisper love's own tale, 
Enchantment tips the fields o' rye; 
The rose nods to the nightingale, 
The zephyr breathes an amorous sigh; 
And each delight the heart discerns 
Is dowered with the grace of Burns. 



I seem to hear his magic voice, 
While memories of the past are rife; 
Full well I know while I rejoice, 
The lament of his lonely life; 
The burden of the heart of him, 
The sorrow of the soul of him. 



Love's incense at his shrine I light, 
I share the righteous wrath of him; 
The garden swims before my sight, 
I cheer the proud disdain of him, 
And that swift lance of his keen wit, 
Which slays the hollow hypocrite. 



His dust's abloom! the woodlands ring 

His melodies all but divine! 

Oh, that from my poor clay might spring 

Such wondrous grace as thine 

Sweet "Robbie" Burns ; the world's delight, 

Guard of Truth, and Beauty's Knight. 



61 



Wherever Scotchmen bide or stray, 
Thy name must be their fondest token; 
Thy verse a talisman alway, 
A magic charm fore'er unbroken. 
Would that I could my poor wreath lay 
On Caledonia's noblest clay. 



AMERICA. 

From out the vast expanse of eastern ocean 
In regal splendor mounts the sun once more; 
He beams upon this land in rapt devotion, 
And hails with joy Columbia's happy shore. 



A thousand cities woke beneath his beams, 
The world enchanted smiled beneath his sway; 
And plains and mountains, brooks and mighty streams 
Renewed their homage to the God of Day. 



His journey done, the crimson west adorning, 
Bright sets the sun across Pacific main, 
Reluctant leaves, but that he knows the morning 
Will bring him o'er this happy land again. 



6 2 




With thou beside me singing." — Pagt 



63 

REVERIE. 

Once more with me, aside, apart, 

Retracing pathways of the heart 

In happier days. What joys, what tears, 

What shadowy host of hopes and fears 

Come trooping at the call? 

From memory's silent hall. 

We know again the trackless seas, 
The virgin woods, the mountain breeze. 
We feel the touch of baby hands, 
We roam once more in foreign lands; 
And like a glimpse of Heaven above 
Comes memory of some maiden's love. 



And sometimes fast, then softly, slow, 
The stream of flitting fancies flow, 
There's prizes that we could not win, 
There's tears for all "that might have been" 
And mingled with the world's sad sights 
Comes memories of enchanted flights. 

There's bits of lore from fairy land, 

And saddened thoughts of hearts estranged. 

A picture of some ocean shore 

Brings back a face we'll see no more. 



64 

REVERIE. 

A phantom shape breaks on the view- 
Recalling some fond last adieu. 



There's cadence sweet of woodland streams, 
And echoes of dear childhood's dreams, 
There's many a "Poet's golden word," 
And wondrous music we have heard. 
And solitude of sylvan dells, 
And melody of distant bells. 



Ecstatic charm of starry nights 
Full oft has lured from worldly sights 
To glimpses of a better life, 
And hate of all this foolish strife. 
When all earth's splendor and renown 
Seemed indeed a sorry crown. 



There's mournful tales the wild winds bear, 
Affliction's hand, and want and care. 
And in the sunset's dying glow 
We read ambition's "long ago." 
But hope knows nothing of the past, 
And hope and love will ever last. 



"Fancies, fancies, nothing more," 
From the mind's full treasured store; 
Like phantoms come, like shadows go, 
So memory's tide doth ebb and flow, 
From life's early morning breaking 
To the sleep "that knows no waking." 




"UNDER TWO FLAGS." 

Britannia in her mighty morning 
Chose cross set flag of triple hue; 
Columbia chose for her adorning 
The white starred one of red and blue. 
Renown and Glory smiled on each, 
And Hope is ever in our reach, 
And Freedom never fears, 
While floats the Flag of the Century, 
And the one of the Thousand Years. 



And while they hold secure their sway, 
The race must tread a better way 
To the goal of better men. 
So good, indeed, are these flags to see, 
The one in its pride of a Century, 
And the one with the pride of Ten. 



66 



GJIjp fepn* Sianumttfs. 

Upon the wakened wonder of my soul 

The deeper harmonies of nature roll 

And break: and yet their cold waves have but found 

An empty shell wherein strange echoes sound. 

When Faith lies shattered at proud Learning's feet 

What is there left to render music sweet? 

When all the sacred altars are in dust 

What shrine can Science rear that man may trust? 

This is the death-in-life, this is the woe, 

— That, seeing all, yet we may never know. 

When awed before the glories of the night 
That roll resplendent on my raptured sight, 
I marvel much a creature of an hour 
Should probe the problems of the mighty Power 
That poises worlds, and portions space to give 
The just relation that the whole may live — 
That is the wonder; this the soul distress — 
(That palls the senses, galls the bitterness,) 
To feel the thirst and see afar the fount, 
And call on Fate in vain for means to mount. 

To touch the veil with touch all powerless; 

To find the field, and find it flowerless. 

To see the fires of Hope all cold and dead, 

Her holy temples all untenanted. 

To sail all seas and find no beacon light; 

To strike! to sink! in gloom and endless night. 

This is the crowning woe of all that Doubt portends — 

To know Death's journey, but not where it ends. 

Yet, on the edge of this despairing hell 

There comes a Voice assuring, "All is well, 

This dread — this doubt, of thy brief earthly span 

Are part and portion of the Master's plan." 

"His scales are just, Beloved, have no fear, 

And in their balances the righteous tear 

Is weighty, and the deeds of love and truth 

Are seeds that shrine the germ of endless youth." 

"And foolish child, herein thy error lies — 

To seek immortal things with mortal eyes." 




67 




WHEN SETS MY SUN. 



The sunset's flush is mellow o'er the 

earth, 
The glory deepens in the western sky; 
While in the sombre east 
The world of night 
With solemn tread advances. 

Now gentle grasses wave a fond adieu, 
Now soft laments from feathered 

throats are wrung, 
And all the world obeisance makes 
Before the splendid passing 
Of the mighty prince of day. 

'Tis now the hour of the heart's tran- 
quility; 

The hour of the soul's sweet softening; 

The hour when the Spirit of Omnipo- 
tence 

Doth summon to the counsel 

Of His silent sessions 

The recreant heart of man. 

And as the shadows deepen 

And the gentle twilight falls, 

My pensive thoughts prepare a way 

For Memory's feet 

Adown the velvet aisles of retrospect, 

And not alone what was, but all that 
is to be 

Comes now before the eye of contem- 
plation. 

So while I watch the passing of the 
light, 

And see the lesser darkness clasp the 
world, 

I think of that lone day when yonder 
sun 

For me shall rise no more. 

And in this mood I sit and muse 
Fpon the ways of Him who maketh no 

mistakes: 
Who gives no hope without fulfillment: 
Who marks the simple sparrow's fall: 
Who tempers the white-hot sword of 

vengeance 
In the cooling fount of His great 

mercy. 



68 



Whose voice will still the tortured sea 

of life, 
And whose great love will bridge 
The awful gulf of death. 
Of whom 'tis writ, that "He 
Will come to judge the living and the 

dead" 
When the sun of Truth shall rise to set 

no more, 
And Righteousness shall claim her 

own. 

'Tis thus I ponder on the prospect 
Which my solitary soul shall see 
When sets my sun — a trembling thing — 
In the vast ocean of Eternity. 




THE LOVES OF SHAKESPEARE. 



Now is this art high minister to Love, 

The very mirror that reflects Love's face; 
Transcending earth he takes from Heaven above 

The fire to add a lustre to Love's grace. 
'Tis thus, sweet Love, full pictured in his verse 

Thou livest in beauty through time-eating ages, 
That lovers may their love-racked souls immerse 

And read thy glories in his deathless pages. 

So shalt thou live on earth when cruel time 
Hath swept his dust storms over all we see, 

And from thy haven in some fairer clime 

Will smile to know that thus he gloried thee. 

Thus love is fame — and love when linked with thee 

Is fame that lives through all eternity. 



69 



THE MAN WITH THE GREAT CONTROL. 

Bowed by the weight of power and wealth, he leans 

Within the shadow of his sunless den. 

A giant in the world's control, 

A dwarf in heart, a very mite in soul. 

Who made him dead to rapture, love and beauty? 

A Thing that hopes but for the vain increase 

Of dross, which he anon must leave. 

A Cerberus whose cursed greed is never satisfied. 

Whose was the hand that seamed this hard set face, 

Who set the eve that views unmoved the bleeding heart, 

Who cast the harsh metallic voice that knows no tone of 

pity? 
What is this Shape which undismayed can hear 
The heaving sigh of the world's great agony? 



Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave 

To have dominion over nobler men? 

To wield the destiny of human souls, 

To wear the crown of immortality 

Who seeks alone the tinseled crown of Mammon? 

If this be so, sweet Christ have mercy on thy fold! 

This shape that stuns the heart and makes the soul despair 

Is brother to the hungry wolf, the venomous snake, 

And every beast of prey that fats on lust and ravage. 



THE MAN WITH THE GREAT CONTROL. 

This Incarnation of material things, this earth-bound Man 
Stands forth the crowning curse, the withering blight 
Of all creation. 



Men, do ye know him? The birds are mute, the roses droop 
Their heads at his approach. Brother to the ox indeed! 
Why This — within the realm of brutes, is greatest Brute 
Of all; tear but the mask and see — he stands revealed 
In all the fury of his naked lust — a hideous Monster. 
A Vision fit to blast the eyes, to dull sweet faith, 
To rack the heart of humankind. And to this Thing 
Oh men, do ye give power, to turn the course 
Of nature's bounty all awry. This Man who in the name 
Of "business/' crimes commit whose fearful wrong, cries 
Up to God's white throne for retribution. 



Oh where shall Virtue find a living place, 
With Plenty's horn held fast in hands like this? 
What need for Her with streaming, pleading face 
To seek bright Hope, or ask for Mercy's kiss? 
This tribe would crush her off the earth 
And strangle her fair offspring at their birth. 
This Thing that mocks the Savior's sacrifice 
Hates all but that which pampers Pride and Vice. 
This Vampire on the world's supreme distress 
Cares naught for blame, for blessing cares he less. 



71 

THE MAN WITH THE GREAT CONTROL. 

Abundant in the blessings of a bounteous God 
A fairer world was ne'er set in the lap of space; 
And seasons spread beneath a pleasant sun 
Bring forth unnumbered joys of bounding life. 
Hill and dale, and ocean's vast expanse 
Produce alike a myriad fairy forms, 
While set round all a countless throng of 
World's majestic, invite profoundest awe. 
But this gross Thing makes all his immolation, 
And sears the earth with fret and desolation. 



NIGHT'S ENCHANTMENT. 



The daisies and the daffodils, 
A mob of moon-eyed madcaps, 
That line the downs, and fringe the hills, 
And deck the marge the stream laps, 

Are nodding in this gloaming hour, 
And whispering the token 
That night has come, and bird and flower 
Must keep the spell unbroken. 

And now the night puts swift to flight 
Day's remnant that would falter, 
And calls upon all worldly sight 
To bow before her altar. 



NIGHT'S ENCHANTMENT. 

Some hand unseen now draws the screen 
That hides the hosts of Heaven 
And lo! a myriad silver lights 
To rapture's gaze are given. 



Soft Luna in her youthful prime 
Now crowns the earth with glory, 
Sets all the prose of day to rhyme, 
And well she tells the story. 



The Moon Sprite roves the earth where ways 

Are silvery and golden, 

And with the Nymphs of night she plays 

As in the times of olden. 



And they who once have seen her face 
Strange benisons are granted, 
Are "poets" called, a "moon-struck" race 
Who live in lands enchanted. 





73 




The hour of the soul's 

sweet softening." — Page 6j 



'. 1 



CONTEMPLATION. 



Like bird that beats against restraining barb 

The soul imprisoned in this suffering clay, 

Poor thing of circumstance and fickle chance, 

Cries out at its probation; 

And while yet a slave 

"To hard Mortality the soul's jailer," 

It dreams of all things free. 

And though bowed beneath a load of vexing soi 

Pent in this narrow, empty way of life, 

The higher soul doth make a world 

Quite all its own; 

A world of joy, and peace, and light; 

YVhenein, though yet a weary exile, it may roam 

Those confines bright, and vast, and beautiful'. 

Within this realm resplendent, 

They that suffer find a surcease sweet, 

And they that weary, find a rest, 

And new pure joy of being. 



And what though I be poor, as poverty reckoned 
In this world of ours? My mind is rich 



CONTEMPLATION. 

in things of greater need! 

The stars of Heaven shine as much for me 

As for the sceptered King. 

The peaceful content of an honest heart 

Is mine, and from the turmoil 

Of the maddening world, 

I turn to things sublime and find 

A glorious promise. 

The ineffable ecstacy and peace of being 



'flLflBH 



Which dwells with those who contemplate 

In love and reverence 

The solemn splendors of a starry night, 

Are mine, whene'er I choose to tread 

Their crystal depths; 

And in the realms of fancy, far and free, 

My soul delights, and findeth there indee- 

A blessed promise of that peace 

"Which passeth understanding." 



And thus for those who scorn, yet be? 
The petty things of this brief span, 
There is a fount filled to the brim 






Hlk . 



■r- 



Y, 



V-r 



*d * 



76 

CONTEMPLATION. 

With purest joy sublime, 

Unmixed with taint of baser uses; 

And to that living stream the wearied soul 

May turn, and cleanse the parching dust and heat 

Of this world's fret and care. 

Nature's portals stand ajar inviting 

All who at her truthful shrine would kneel. 

Behind her mighty laws we know and feel 

The touch of an Almighty hand 

Whose Presence is but veiled by such thin curtain 

That the raptured soul can almost touch 

And draw aside. 



And Death! the grim and awful terror 

Of those abandoned to the ways of earth, 

Comes to the soul uplifted a genial host, 

Bidding it welcome to its heritage — 

A boundless prospect, in which a thousand worlds 

Shall be but as a city to the earth, 

And a thousand years — a day. 

Armed well to strike, and keeping by command 

That region pure, the Heavenly guards are set; 

The pass word there is "purity," 

The countersign, an honest heart. 



77 
CONTEMPLATION. 

What matter brother if thy burden here be heavy, 

And thy sad heart turn sick along the way, 

And none take heed? Tune but thy soul 

To things sublime, and in thy desolation know, 

For every night there is a day, 

And for each tear in sadness shed 

A great, vast sea of sympathy. 

SOMETIMES THINK OF ME. 

When in thy wanderings 
O'er deep seas afar, 
Lonely thy heart may be 
Think then of me. 



Night on the battle field 
Bright stars their vigil keep, 
Think what the day may see, 
Turn then to me. 



And when the wild winds roar 
Night on a rock bound shore, 
God thy protector be, 
Think then of me. 



When in sad retrospect 
Heart ache and dumb regret, 
Life not what life might be, 
Think then of me. 




Long is the lonely night, 
Sad is the morn so bright, 
Dim my poor aching sight; 
Haste love, to me. 



I am thy guiding star, 
Come back from lands afar, 
Look in thy heart and see 
Image of me. 



31)£ CCiialimgpr. 

Like Knight of old with "snow white crest" 
On prancing steed and lance in rest, 
He sought with knightly, courtly ways 
The tourney field of modern days. 
His was the joy that warriors know 
When first they meet a worthy foe. 



His steed — a ship that did not lag, 
His banner — grand old England's flag; 
His lance — a towering mast in stays, 
His "Ladye love" — a silver vase. 
And thus he came o'er sea's expanse 
To "lift" that "chalice of romance." 



79 



The "Ocean Lists" which held this most 

Prized gem, lay off Columbia's coast; 

A "tilt yard of the sea" ablaze 

With glorious deeds of other days. 

The vase he found in worthy keeping, 

And round its shrine no knight was sleeping. 



Columbia ! Shamrock ! Hail ! Farewell ! 
White sisters of the towering sail ; 
That won and lost the knightly fray 
And trophy of great nation's play. 
The Trophy which fore'er must be 
Blue Ribbon of the bounding sea. 



But though brave Shamrock lost the race, 

There is no doubt about the place 

Sir Thomas holds in Yankee hearts. 

The cheer a "Loving Cup'' imparts 

Is his, filled to the very brim 

With greetings, health and joy to him. 



so 



L'envoi .... 

So when in retrospection's aisle 

In after years we rest awhile, 

We'll see these two (through memory's mists) 

Light lances of the "Ocean Lists." 

We'll hail the gem of memory's store 

Their tilt off fair Columbia's shore. 

In friendship's sunset sea we'll dip 

Our flag, to Knight and Emerald Ship. 



In recognition of his qualities as a gentleman and sports- 
man the citizens of the United States contributed a fund 
for the purpose of presenting Sir Thomas Lipton a testi- 
monial of their regard. A magnificent golden "Loving 
Cup" suitably engraved was sent to him. The incident in- 
spired the above lines, which the committee in charge 
deemed a "very fit accompaniment" for the Cup. 




M^^z^^ iWv r t'-f'f >j tt t&m 



81 




Join in to make the music 
Of the soulful song of spring. : 



55- 



MOONLIGHT MADRIGAL. 

Tell me bright Queen of Heaven, 
Thou shalt my prophet be; 
When to me shall be given 
She whom I long to see? 
Thou art the lover's charm, 
Hear thou my litany; 
Shed down some hopeful balm, 
Unveil my fate to me. 

Chorus (echo). 

Queen of the ebb and flow 
( )f the great tides below, 
To his cloyed vision show 
His heart's desire. 
Shed on him beauteous moon 
Love's efolden fire. 



Queen of the lover's night 
Hear thou my lone lament, 
Bring to my aching sight, 
Earth born though heaven sent 
Girl of the pensive mien, 
She of the drooping eyes; 
Thou of the night art Queen, 
Grant me this glad surprise. 



83 



MELANCHOLY'S MUSING. 



This life may be a gladsome round 

Of love and beauty blended, 

But even in its happiest hour 

We sigh for joys long ended, 

And stop 'mid laughter, song and play, 

To mourn for some dead yesterday. 



Fame's dazzling star serenely shines 

And lures another wooer, 

Yet even as its lustre burns 

The dark begins to lower. 

And many curse their lofty aim 

Who court the fickle star of Fame. 



The light that lights the lover's eve 

Sheds radiance celestial. 

Yet love's pure flame oft' serves to fire 

A lust that's all terrestrial. 

And heavenly pictures lovers paint 

Too oft' are touched with worldly taint. 



MELANCHOLY'S MUSING. 

The spring time charms, and fettered feet 

Would fain find fancy's goal, 

But springtime longing in the heart 

Makes sadness in the soul; 

For 'mid life's artificial frost 

We feel its wealth of sunshine lost. 



The peace that friendship still imparts 

Is ours so long the fates are fair, 

But let them frown, then seek the hand 

Late at our side — it is not there! 

For friendship's reared on golden sands, 

And storm waves beat at last all strands. 



But thou sweet Faith, that lights the night 
Of gloom, when souls with grief are torn. 
Thy star's not Cm, my aching sight 
Full long thy radiance hath borne. 
Last friend and best! thy feet Hope shod, 
Leave prints that point the path to God. 





Sd 





THE MUSIC OF HUMAN HEARTS. 

Clear through the troubled ages, 

Ever in time and place, 
Breaks at the portals of Heaven 

The hymn of our human race. 
Music of manifold passion, 

Of forum, of field, of art; 
Born of the human striving 

Deep in the human heart. 

The song of the soul in the silence; 

The dirge of the heart in its doubt; 
The plaint of the spirit imprisoned, 

And the paens of the angels without. 
Down through the troubled ages 

— Holy, and clear, and sublime, — 
The music of human passion 

Breaks on the shores of Time. 

Music of minor cadences, 

Music that prompts to tears; 
Music that sanctifies pity 

Through all the perilous years. 
Fervid, pulsating, pervading, 

Responsive to heaven within, 
Out of the human frailty, 

Rs joy, its despair, and its sin. 

Music that melts into memories, 

Giving a soul to the past, 
Swinging the portals of reverie's 

Beautiful temple and vast. 
Music that is to the spirit 

As the founts to the fainting hart — 
Wells from the secret springs of God 

Deep in the human heart. 

Music that stirs compassion 

For all things He hath made; 
Music that finds admission 

Where the heavenly harps are played. 
Out of our human faith and hope 

Sheer to the Throne on High, 
The song of the soul its echo finds 

In immortality. 



I FAIN WOULD UNBURDEN. 



'Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! 
I am so weary of toil and of tears; 
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain; 
Take them, and give me my childhood again!" 

— Elizabeth A. Allen. 



Yes, let me unburden and rest in the shade, 

For far from the fountains my foot-steps have strayed. 

And darkness is falling and chill is the wind, 

And hope and ambition were long left behind. 

There are vows unfulfilled, and debts all unpaid: 

I fain would unburden and rest in the shade. 

I fain would unburden. The way has been drear; 

The flowers of spring-time are frosted and sere; 

The sun of my life is inclined to the West, 

The fires of affliction have left me unblest. 

My heart is sore heavy with mounds newly made: 

I fain would unburden and rest in the shade. 

The seasons still come and the seasons still go 

With blossomful summers and winters of snow; 

And I fancy I hear in my lone retreat 

The joyous sovmds of returning feet! 

But no! 'tis a dream that is born bvit to fade: 

I fain would unburden and rest in the shade. 

I fain would unburden: the days of my youth, 

When the whole world seemed framed in a setting of truth, 

When sin and deception alike were unknown, 

And life was as light as a lily unblown — 

Are lost in the stress of a pitiless trade. 

I fain would unburden and rest in the shade. 

When blushes would mantle my cheek and my brow 

At hint of the vulgar, all unheeded now; 

When Fancy unfolded her fairest delight, 

And Hope was a beacon that dazzled my sight — 

All, all on the altar of Folly are laid: 

I fain would unburden and rest in the shade. 

With Sin for my comrade I went on my way 

And never looked off to the reckoning day; 

And my foot -steps have wandered world-wide from my God! 

And I tremble to think of the tracks I have trod. 

For Sorrow the foot-step of Folly attends, 

And Pleasure's a traitor that fails all his friends. 



87 



I fain would unburden; Fate e'en has denied 
The pitiful pittance that scarce would provide; 
And Fame, the false phantom has led me to sound 
Deep waters, and night-time is closing around! 
On a tempest-tossed ocean my soul is astray 
And I long for the banks of the Beautiful Bay. 

Life's hazard, life's winnings, its spoil — take them all! 

They darken my soul like a funeral pall. 

Yes, take them, and welcome! I mourn the lost truth 

That flowed with the fount of my beautiful youth. 

I turn from the Hell by unrighteousness made, 

To that Bourn where the weary may rest in the shade. 



SWEET FRIEND OF MY YOUTH. 



I cannot forget thee, sweet mother of mine, 
For never was mother-love greater than thine. 
And no heart in the wide world was ever more true 
Than the one that now fills with remembrance of you. 

I cannot forget thee, dear friend of my youth, 
Whose soul was my sanctum of love and of truth; 
Whose heart was a refuge for mine in distress; 
Who oft' soothed my sorrow with tender caress. 

Not more of an angel in Heaven above 
Can you be than you were to my childhood's great love; 
And I've felt your dear presence through perilous years 
Breathing pity, and pardon, and wiping my tears. 

I cannot forget thee, dear mother of mine, 

And the tears and the love that have mingled with thine, 

And the heart that was ever my haven of truth: 

I cannot forget thee, sweet friend of my youth! 




88 



SHAKESPEARE. 

There lived a man of such surpassing pen 
That e'en to praise lends grace to lesser men; 
Wherefore my homage prompts, my pen designs 
The passing tribute of these simple lines. 

Not that the measure of my obscure praise 
Could honor him who set the world ablaze; 
I claim but vassal poet's meed, to bring 
A reverent homage to his Poet King. 



Surpassing Shakespeare! Splendid man of yore, 
Whose memory all the best of earth adore; 
Thou livest still by virtue all thine own, 
Thou canst not die while reason holds her throne. 

The lustre of thy sun pales all beside, 
The current of thy thoughts is as a tide 
Which knows no ebb, but ever full and strong 
Flows on forever, taking all along. 

"Exceeded by the height of happier men"? 
Ah, no indeed, the old world wonders when 
That soul seraphic shall assume man's shape, 
And e'en the meanest of thy verses drape. 



89 
SHAKESPEARE. 



The faintest whisper of thy mighty voice, 
Hath charm to make the thoughtful soul rejoice. 
Like some swift craft that does the fleet forsake, 
Thou leavest all to follow in thy wake. 



Thine undiminished splendor dazzles still, 
Nor will thy genius cease to bind and thrill 
Thy worshippers; for thy eternal fame 
Securely set, burns with undying flame. 



Thou gentlest spirit of our mortal race, 

Who charmed the earth with rare and wondrous grace. 

Impotent pen! that would presume to tell 

Of shining symbols thou hast wrought so well. 



Thou art the rarest heritage of time, 
A relic of the world's full, happy prime; 
The like of which we'll see no more on earth; 
Thou left a goddess barren at thy birth. 



Mightiest master of the realms of thought, 
The wisest of the earth have never sought 
Within thy pages for a text in vain; 
And so they'll come, and seek, and find again. 



90 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Immortal Bard! Eternally in debt 
Are we to thy great treasure house; and yet 
We would not cast aside thy gentle yoke, 
Nor from enchantment of thy spell be woke, 



No depth of thought thy great soul could not sound;. 

In Himalayan heights thy fancy found 

Congenial soil; nor great, nor small ignored, 

Left naught uncompassed, and naught unexplored. 



Before the magic of thy wondrous flame 
A thousand poets' work lies cold and tame. 
Thine own words serve the best for thy adornment 
So thou art still "the world's fresh ornament." 



Immeasurable mastery was thine, 
Thou mad'st a profane tongue all but divine. 
Invincible! Endowed with heavenly grace,. 
The splendor of thy light naught can efface. 



Like sun converting from the marshy plain 
Polluted waters into heavenly rain. 
So thy enchanted wand did'st alchemize 
The leaden clod, on "-olden wind's to rise. 



91 

Supreme ! Transcendant ! King of earthly kings, 
How came thee in this world of common things ? 
Was it that Fate one day in kindly bent 
Saw Beauty prostrate and sweet Shakespeare sent ? 

* * * Hs * 

Oh, England ! When is passed thy worldwide sway, 
When armaments and commerce fade away ; 
When conquering names seem but a restless dream, 
His name alone, shall still keep thine supreme. 

And though the world heeds not this verse of mine, 
I lay it with my love at his great shrine. 
To stand uncovered by his mighty grave 
Is but the fonder privilege I crave. 

A tribute from America. 



THE SOUL'S RETURN. 



I sent my soul to wander in 

The paths that wend through realms of sin; 

And soon my soul returned to me 

With bitter tears, and pleadingly 

Implored to be allowed to stay 

Upon the straight and narrow way. 

"For," said my soul, "the gulf is deep 

To which I tremblingly did creep, 

And there above its awful gloom 

I read — 'This is the Pit of Doom; 

Souls that would not to ruin stray 

Must take the Straight and Narrow Way.' " 

And said my soul — "Let me remain 

To share this blessed path of pain, 

To be a glowing light within 

A tenement beset with sin. 

Let me abide my earthly day 

Upon the straight and narrow way." 



92 

PLEASURE AND CONTENT. 

To seek this twain a youth one day 
Set out upon his laughing way, 
And nothing could his ardor stay 
So sure was he the finding. 

Anon — an old man aged and bent 
With furrowed face and strength all spent 
Still sought in vain that wight "Content," 
And still is seeking. 

To all else blind yon silk set dame 
Called madly on false "Pleasure's" name, 
And fanned slow fires to glowing flame 
To burn before his altar. 

Too soon alas! the fire was cold, 
Too soon, alas! the young grow old; 
Too soon alas! the tale is told 
That fires and men make ashes. 

Though wide the world and great its treasure, 
Too poor it is, too mean its measure 
To bribe and hold Content and Pleasure, 
They're phantoms never bridled. 



93 
EASTER TRIUMPHANT. 



"I am the Resurrection and the Life." 

"He is Arisen! Christ the Lord is King!" 

Through all the earth the strains triumphant ring; 

On every shore, in every distant land, 

Where rolls the Indus or on Afric's strand; 

On islands where profoundest peace prevails, 

O'er battlefields where loud the widow wails, 

The hymn resounds above all stress and strife — 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life!" Amen. 

Or by the Thames where bustling commerce roars, 

Or where old Tiber lips his ancient shores, 

The saintly service to the sky ascends 

And nature's music in the anthem blends. 

And St. Paul's echoes Saintly Peter's voice, 

And all the world repeats — Rejoice! Rejoice! 

And far and near the holy hymn is rife — 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life!" Amen. 



Or where lone ice-fields mirror midnight suns; 
Or where "the Congo 'neath the tropic runs." 
Or where the Rockies, lone, majestic, rise 
With pearly peaks against their painted skies; 
From dark morasses; deserts parched and nude; 
Virginian valleys in their plentitude: 
Is heard some note to swell the wondrous psalm — 
"The Resurrection and the Life I am." Amen. 



And now the spring with magic rare and free 
Revives all things with "heavenly alchemy," 
Touches the dead — they quicken and rejoice 
To lend their homage to the Easter voice. 
And serried ranks of pale, white lilies wave, 
To deck the chancel or some new-made grave; 
And feathered songsters swell the saintly psalm — 
"The Resurrection and the Life I am." Amen. 

Yea, spring has come, a beauteous, blushing bride, 
To proffer flowers for the Eastertide; 
Blest symbols these to souls that seek release 
And wait the coming of the Prince of Peace. 
God-given flowers; tokens of His love. 
Sweet earthly promises of Heav'n above, 
That lure the soul from sorrow, sin and strife 
To Him — the Resurrection and the Life. Amen. 



"He is Arisen! Christ the Lord is King!" 

Through all the earth the strains triumphant ring; 

In every clime, on every distant shore, 

On sunset islands where lone surges roar; 

O'er battlefields where Mercy hides her eyes 

And Pain is cheated as some hero dies, 

Yet even there is heard above the strife — 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life!" Amen. 

PRAYER. 

Oh Best Beloved! Some small space I crave 

To do Thy service 'ere I fill my grave, 

That I may know when borne upon Thy wing 

Death hath no victory, the grave no sting. 

Be Thou my friend along life's barren strand, 

And guide my steps safe through the sunless land, 

That I may know e'en when Death amis his dart — 

The Resurrection and the Life Thou art. Amen. 



THE PARTIXG. 



The farewell kiss, the hurried embrace, 
The lingering look on the well-loved face; 
The bustle and noise of the fretful train, 
The thought — will ever we meet again? — 
And that is the pang of parting. 

The last "God bless you," the smothered 

sigh, 
The promise to meet in the "by-and-by:" 
The smile that is clearly of sorrow's brand, 
The tear, and the touch of the lingering 
hand, 
And that is the pathos of parting. 

The lump in the throat as the train pulls 

out, 
The promise brave, but the cruel doubt! 
The empty track whence the train has 

flown, 
The standing there in our grief — alone! — 
Yes. that is the pa'n of parting. 




si 5 

A POET'S PLAINT. 

A poet lived as a poet will 
On a diet of fancy and song; 
With a heart attune to the glow of June, 
And light with the thought that ere long 
The world would listen and perhaps give heed, 
Would nourish a flower instead of a weed; 
For the poet had cherished a beautiful creed, 
And his faith was pure and strong. 

And he toiled along in his lonelv way 

As only a poet can, 

And he turned his face to a brighter day, 

With faith in his fellow man. 

He wrote of love and he wrote of beauty, 

He wrote of right, and faith, and duty, 

He wrote of a smiling land of plentv; 

With nothing, his flame to fan. 

But the poet had fallen on evil days, 

As many have done before; 

His lot was cast 'mid barren wavs, 

And his heart grew heavy and sore; 

For he reckoned not with the fool's disdain 

And the envy that comes like a blighting bane, 

So the poet's work was all in vain, 

And they laughed at the rasrs he wore. 



96 



A POET'S PLAINT. 

And envy sneered and his friends were few, 

And wealth gave its wild acclaim, 

To the pampered clown and the parvenu, 

A story that's often the same. 

And the poet starved as the poet must 

Who sows the wheat and reaps but dust 

So his cheeks grew pale and his pen did rust; 

Forsooth! who was to blame? 



For the world demands in its narrow creed 
That those who would gain its smile, 
Should follow assenting its brutish lead, 
And its sin and its lust beguile. 
But the poet's path lies another way, 
It leads from darkness unto the day 
Where the greater Poet holds His sway, 
Where nothing can defile. 




97 
SEE THAT YOU KEEP THE FOUNTAINS CLEAB. 



To Hugh Gordon Miller, Esq., upon the happy occasion of his 
marriage, and as a slight testimonial of his kindly encouragement and 
generous recognition of my earlier efforts. 

Some folks will rhyme on slight pretext, 

While others, more discerning, 
Rhyme only when they find a text 

To suit their wondrous learning. 
For me, I rhyme when Fancy's fire 

Glows at the heart's persuasion; 
And when a friend finds Loves desire 

Deem that a fit occasion. 

So that, when Memory turns to glance 

Back on life's varied way. 
Some pleasure you may find— perchance — 

To read this little lay. 
To know that with poetic grace 

From love's own kindly store, 
A friend had stopped to mark the place 

Where you found Fortune's door. 

Here's to the honored spouse you took, 

And may your tribe increase! 
And may your names be in the "Book 

Of Love" and Joy, and Peace. 
May every trial that knits your brow 

Prove but Fate's just replevin, 
And pain and sorrow but the steps 

Whereon you mount to Heaven. 

You are a man of goodly parts, 

By kindly nature blest; 
Y T ou've struck affections chord in hearts 

That know and love you best. 
In mounting fortune's rock-bound hill 

You've kicked no brother down; 
In sailing o'er ambition's sea 

You've let no comrade drown. 

Your purse was ever open wide 

To Poverty's demand; 
Affliction faltering at your side 

Has found a helping hand. 
Misfortune looking in your face 

Has read a gentle creed; 
And Sorrow, passing, smiled, and marked 

\ou for her hour of need. 



98 



See that you keep the fountains clear 

Whence spring such goodly graces, 
For once corrupted they may dry 

And leave but barren places. 
Old age implants a chilling blight 

On hearts by greed contracted, 
And clogs youth's genial charities 

Unless well counteracted. 

You're on the sun-rise side of life, 

The world is all before you; 
May fortune clear your road of strife, 

And evil things ignore you. 
And when you've reached the highest spot 

Above all care or fret, 
Oh, then, as now, — forget me not! 

Your friend, — George F. Viett. 





UTO WHOM DO VIvOWE St.YOVR.~S~W-' I C | 



qYg-TgNOVROTCLL ME |-F>HAY THT^TERE^THF - LEAFOft-THE FLOWE - "" 



99 




Latest pilgrim to the shore of life's restless sea."— Page $8. 



100 

THE MARINERS. 



Dedicated to W. Clark Russell, Esq., in whose excellent company 

I've traversed the traveled ocean tracks 

With many a rollicking crew; 
And sailed through the lonely latitudes 

With the havens far and few. 
I've staggered on seas where the oceans meet, 

And the pinnacled icebergs lay; 
And watched where a thousand watery leagues 

Made shift for the Storm King's play. 

I've feathered the foam in a flying brig 

When the yards touched the leeward seas, 
'Mid the blinding scud, and a boarding flood, 

And the might of a Cape Horn breeze. 
I've stood in the gloom on the brink of doom. 

When the good ship struck the shoal! 
And held my breath at the vision of Death 

'Tween me and the saving goal. 

To the endless dirge of the wind -racked surge 

I've sighed with the castaways, 
And watched in vain o'er the mighty main 

Through the weary, heart -sick days. 
To the glories of night I've lifted my sight 

From the ocean -bound solitudes: 
And tinctured my life w ith the sea and the strife 

Of its multitudinous moods. 

I've buried my bride where the breakers beat 

On a billow-bound, barren shore; 
Felt a seaman's death in the hurricane's breath, 

And the note of old ocean's roar. 
Looked fate in the face in the maddening race 

Where the derelict plunged and rose; 
Froze stiff and stark in the dreadful dark 

That only a sailor knows. 

I've drank on the deck of a dancing ship 

Of the sweet, sweet breath of the brine; 
Of a moon -lit night, with a maiden bright 

Whom I ventured to ask to be mine, 
Wlien with soulful eyes in a mild surprise 

And maidenly graciousness, 
She turned from me to the shimmering sea 

In its splendid spaciousness. 



101 



In "The Middle Watch," "Round the Galley Fire," 

I've learned of the sailor's lore; 
And passed through "An Ocean Tragedy," 

In "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." 
"A Strange Voyage" I sailed in "The Golden Hope, 

And with "Frozen Pirate" and crew. 
And "A Marriage at Sea" was as charming to me 

As the yarn of the "Little Loo." 

Bold is the heart that the sailor bears, 

Bold as the surges that sweep. 
Many the moods that the sailor shares — 

Manifold moods of the deep. 
Majestic the music the sailor hears — 

Chorus of wind and wave. 
Deep is the lore that the sailor learns — 

Deep as his ocean grave. 

Then here's to the Saxon mariners! 

Who never a challenge refuse. 
And the sea-girt sons of Albion! 

Who quicken my mermaid muse. 
And here's to the man who's told for all time 

Of their dauntless valor and vim! 
And I dip my flag — a glorious flag — 

Three times to them all — and to him! 




102 

AT EVENTIDE. 



"Now was the day departing." 



Tis sunset and the shadows fling 
The spell of silence o'er us, 

And vesper bells now softly ring, 
And night is all before us. 



And twilight's sway is o'er the earth 
In hushed and mellow splendor, 

The children from their romp and mirth 
Seek home and loved ones tender. 



And gathering shades of dark prevail 
To dim day's golden glory, 

The lark yields to the nightingale 
Love's everlasting story. 



Bright hour whose birth is in the West, 
Thou of the Sun's farewell; 

Last jewel of the daytime's crest, 
Thy charm no tongue may tell. 



103 



.T EVENTIDE. 



Chxia of the Day King's afterthought, 
Born of the Night Queen's grace; 

Well o'er the world thy magic's wrought, 
Fair is thy beauteous face. 



Soft soulful hour of eventide! 

The earth now consecrating, 
When strife and stress cannot abide, 

For love and peace are mating. 

God's Acre too, lies 'neath thy dew, 
The dead their soul thirst slaking, 

And in their dreams the past review, 
And wait the wondrous waking. 



Sweet twilight hour! when sad ones know 

The heart's humility; 
When Heaven's shining symbols show 

The soul's sublimity. 



104 




THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

A Dream 

•' But Psyche, uplifting her finger, 
Said, " Sadly this star I mistrust," — 

" I replied, "This is nothing but dreaming : 
Let us on by this tremulous light ! " 

— Poe— 

I lay in the moonlight that yellowed 

And gilded the couch of my rest; 

The garden seemd mystic and mellowed, 

The landscape enchanted and blest. 

And the moon with a circle was haloed, 

When my head to the pillow I pressed; 

And my thoughts like fair Luna were mellowed, 

And serene, as her light at its best, 

Now fondling the place of my rest. 



My soul seemed a harp of contrition, 

Long swept by remorse and regret; 

But Luna to-night was musician. 

And my soul to her singing was set. 

For moonlight and music's mild mission, 

Is to lighten Fate's burden of debt; 

So I listened to Luna's rendition, 

For the name that I bore rhymed with fret, 

And likewise it chimed with — regret. 



105 
THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 



The magic of moonlight from childhood 

Was ever a balm to my soul, 

More potent than ocean or wildwood 

To show me the ultimate goal 

Of the silent, sad search of the soul. 

So to-night I reposed in contentment, 

While Luna with Heavenly truth, 

Wove spells of the softest enchantment; 

Like dreams of our beautiful youth. 



But my sight caught the blood red Arcturus 
As Bootes slow mounted on high; 
His gleaming seemed fiery and furious 
Like a storm signal set in the sky; 
And I marveled full much why Arcturus 
Should burn so blood red in the sky! 
While a spell that was crimson and curious, 
(That I felt came alone from Arcturus) 
On my star gazing spirit did lie, 
From that ominous orb in the sky. 



And even as I was a praying 

I slept, 'neath incarnadine rays 

Of the star that forever seemed swaying 

In a magical, mystical, maze. 

I dreamed that my soul was a straying 

With a Guide, over flowery ways; 

And limpid the light that was playing 

On gardens that gladdened my gaze. 



106 

THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

The ambient air was abounding 
With softest symphonious strain, 
And the music of harps was resounding, 
As we winged through a lilac lined lane. 
I marveled full much at the music 
That streamed in the softest of song, 
The soulful, seraphical music! 
That burst from some angelic throng, 
In that flower decked region of song. 

Oh, whither sweet friend do we wander? 

I said to the Sylph at my side, 

And she answered "A little off yonder 

Is the place where we'll ever abide." 

And I fancied my feelings grew fonder 

Of the feminine form at my side, 

But the veil that she wore made me ponder 

And ask — "Why thy countenance hide?" 

And she said — "I'll remove it down yonder. 

In the place where we'll ever abide;" 

"Be it so, be it so," I replied. 

"But your name — your dear name, — soft voiced lady?' 

I asked in an amorous breath, 

She replied — "For the time call me Tha-de," 

Which startled I noticed spelled "Death"; 

Said my soul — "But this is Arcady 

And not the grim region of Death!" 

And trustful I smiled at the Lady, 

My temptress, the thin veil-ed Tha-de, 

With the name that would likewise make "Death"! 



107 

THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

Passing poppies in pageant profusion, 
Said my Guide — "Tis the region of Sleep". 
A crimson and scarlet confusion, 
Perfum-ed, and pleasing, and deep. 
But I thought — "Perhaps 'tis all a delusion, 
Ne'er to have, or to hold, or to keep:" 
But I ne'er shall forget that illusion, 
The poppies' perfum-ed effusion 
In that recondite region of Sleep; 
That languorous landscape of Sleep. 

But our flight that was swift, had now brought US 

To mountainous lands of the West; 

And the shadows of sunset had caught us 

In a Valley of vaguest unrest. 

And I cried, "Oh, my Guide! what has brought us 

To this woe-begone land of the West — 

To the verge of this Valley unblest? 

What phantom of evil has sought us 

To quit our late haven of rest, 

On some fanciful, querulous quest?" 

And e'en as I spake the chill twilight 
Struck cold to my heart's very core; 
And I saw in the distance with soul fright 
And spirit disquieted, and sore, 
Some white objects set in the dim light! 
"My Guide should have warned me before" 
I murmured; well mindful that midnight 
Approached, on that desolate shore. 



108 

THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

"We have passed o'er the waters of Lethe, 

And this is the land of the Dead; 

On this journey I've brought you cried Thade, 

To woo you, to win you, and wed!" 

"But why in this region infernal?" 

To Thade I tremblingly said, 

"Because that my love is eternal, — 

I marry alone with the Dead — 

And this is my Kingdom" she said 



"Where I draw forth my veil! and eyes starting 

In horror, look over death's brink. 

My food is the pained breath departing, 

Man's terror and tears are my drink 

As from my cold courtship they shrink! 

I shape myself man or a woman 

To suit both the purpose and time, 

A groom, or a bride, for the human 

I lead to this legended clime." 



"Hunger and Pain are my bridesmaids, 

The bans are pronounced by Disease; 

I court, and ere long the bright cheek fades, 

And my love is soon ready to seize. 

The union is but for a moment 

For widowed I am as I wed, 

My spouses are lying forever 

Alone in their cold nuptial bed, 

Out here in my home of the Dead." 



10i> 
THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

"Oh, Soul — thou canst know no returning, 

Read here — what is writ on this stone," 

And I read by the phosphor' light burning 

The name that I knew was my own! 

By a light all unearthly and eerie 

I read the poor name I had borne! 

Curst Harpy! I shrieked, "I am weary, 

Too long thy dread torment I've borne! 

Thy vision now spectral and dreary — 

This dream land so haunted and eerie, 

Must fade with the light of the morn! 

When Time's offspring — "To-Morrow" — is born." 

"Oh, Soul seeking surcease from sorrow" 

My cursed Companion then said, 

"Know, — never a sunlit to-morrow 

Breaks over the land of the Dead. 

And spirits that stray — phantom chasing, 

Allured by the Lethean lights, 

Make journeys that know no retracing, 

And are lost in the darkest of nights; 

For death is the darkest of nights! 

Then I pondered, appalled at perdition 
From which my poor soul sought release; 
But no road for the feet of Contrition 
Led out to the highways of Peace ! 
To the land of the sad soul's surcease. 
Yet Hope had not yielded to Terror, 
No darkness her vision may blind. 
And I said "This is all a grim error, 
And myth of my mystified mind, 
By demons of darkness designed. 



110 

THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

So I gazed on the dread desolation 

That bounded this horror struck scene, 

And said — "Tis some nightly probation 

Which to-morrow will vanish, I ween — 

When the morning breaks bright and serene. 

But the Shade that was silent beside me, 

Now spake with a terrible tone! 

''No mortal has ever defied me — 

No spirit has ever belied me!" 

And she drew forth' a dart from the stone! 

Quoth I -o my Soul — "There's a Power, 
Though far from this terrible land." 
But I prayed with my Soul in that hour 
For the aid of His Masterful Hand, 
For the might of that Masterful Hand! 
And that prayer in a measure was answered, 
For the Fiend's arm fell by her side; 
But with manner still fearful and angered — ■ 
"Presumptuous, rash mortal" she cried — 
Not here will I stand for thy Bride! 

But yonder — down yonder! where mortals 
Their damnable destiny learn;" 
And She pointed the path to Hell's portals 
Whence I knew that no pilgrims return. 
And the air became bitter and biting, 
As with eyesight all tortured and sore 
I terrified traced the dread writing 
Deep 'graved o'er Gehenna's grim door, 
Passed which, perished hope, evermore. 
While my Guide led the way soul-affrighting 
With haste, for a river washed shore! 
A desolate, damnable shore! 



Ill 

THE COURTSHIP OF DEATH 

And a bark with a Form fierce and furious, 
Made straight for the tenanted strand; 
From his eyes the red light of Arcturus, 
Burned deep in the souls of the band 
That waited his dreadful command. 
"Sweet Dante"! I cried, 'That is Charon, 
And This is the Stygian shore!" 
While I palsied with pain for the pilgrims, 
That bent 'neath his merciless oar; 
The pale phantoms that flitted before 
And shrieked 'neath his pitiless oar! 

"Now make thyself ready for Charon! 

Nor dream any aid to invoke, 

For so soon as thine eyes shall be laid on 

My face, then thy life thread is broke!" 

With a skeleton hand on her veiling. 

She turned while unclasping the yoke! 

While Charon toward me was sailing — 

While Death was withdrawing the veiling — 

I called on the Lord — and awoke! 

W 7 hile the light in my soul was fast failing — 

I called on the Saviour — and WOKE! 




112 
ISLE OF THE HEART'S DESIRE. 



Beautiful isle 

Of a beautiful sea, 
Oft my soul wanders 

Enraptured to thee. 

Azure of sky, 

Golden of beach, 
Beautiful island, 

Far from my reach. 

Snowy waves glancing— 
Moonlight entrancing 
Thy charms enhancing, 
Isle of the sea! 

Island enchanted — 

Beauteous gem! 
Queen of the jewels 

In earth's diadem. 

Wrapt in the glory 

Of emerald seas, 
Fringed with the foam 

From thy coraline keys. 

Kissed by the south breeze, 

Wooed by the waves: 
Radiant with siinMu.u . 

My heart for thee craves. 

Dew-fed, sun-showered, 
Perfumed, embowered, 
Melody dowered 
Isle of the sea! 

Ocean-worn breezes 

Sighing for rest, 
Swoon at thy portals, 

Isle of the blest. 

Chanting thy praises — 

Pearl above price, 
Half this world's chorus 

Might not suffice. 

Some day I will reach thee 

And wander no more, 
Beautiful Isle 

Of the beckoning shore. 




113 



A BATTLE PICTURE 

The battle light on grim and steadfast faces; 

The martial order set to purpose dire; 
In muster ranged o'er broken barren places 

They wait beneath the fire. 

The call! The onset! The flash of busy steel! 

The dreadful cries of maddened man to man ; 
The fearful joy the reddened victor's feel; 

The same blood story since the world began. 

And there in solemn stateliness advancing, 
The glittering masses of the squadrons break 

Upon the scene; the steeds to music prancing 
Indeed a glorious picture make. 

And now they charge! The cruel lance and sabre 
Strews thick the earth with quivering human clay; 

And yet 'tis writ that we should love our neighbor! 
And still we dare to pray. 

Yet hast ordained, Oh, God! that in the cause of right 
Thy people should wage war, and slay, and kill! 

And here again they stand who wage the fight 
In Freedom's holy name. They do Thy will. 



114 



A BATTLE PICTURE. 



For this the battle's glory, pride and splendor; 

For this the cries of pain racked, dying men. 
For this the life blood which the valiant render ; 

For this the tribute of my trembling pen. 



The battle's o'er. In eyes of brave men lurk 
Tears for the havoc which the hour has wrought. 

And with the contemplation of their handiwork 
There comes — Oh, God! — the afterthought — 

That there — beyond the rage and stress of battle, 
Beyond the confines of the blood stained land; 

The mothers, wives and sisters of these lost ones 
Like pitying angels stand. 





115 



PLANT ME A TREE. 



Lay me to rest where the winds blow free, 

Out on the mountain or down by the sea; 

Under the beautiful dome of the sky 

With the flowers about, and the sweet birds nigh. 

Out where the manifold glories of spring 

Their secrets to Heaven are whispering; 

But whether on mountain, or down by the wave — 

Plant me a tree on my lonely grave. 

A wide-spreading elm, or a lordly oak, 

As a trysting-place for the feathered folk; 

Where I may sleep as the lone years fly, 

To the music of nature's lullaby. 

Whose roots may reach to my poor dumb clay 

And fashion it fair for the light of day; 

Through whose living green perchance it might gain 

A glimpse of this beautiful world again. 

Plant me a tree; I may wake 'neath the dew 
And long for a glimpse of the world that I knew; 
For my dreams will be — ere my dreams be done — 
Of the warmth, and the light, of the well-loved sun. 
Or, waking not till the Judgment day — 
Yet do I know that this friendless clay 
Would thrill at the touch of the tree in its bed, 
And dumbly rejoice in the life overhead. 

So will I rest in my silent hall, 
Waiting the sound of the Angel's call; 
While the seasons come and the seasons go, 
Draped in their beauties of verdure or snow. 
Plant me a tree; let its green boughs wave 
Over the spot where you make me a grave, 
So that my memory long may be green 
In its grateful shade and its sun-kissed sheen. 




116 



fHittnr (Uljnr&B 



Like timid feet on some forbidden pathway, 
I tread the road well worn by happier men; 
And in the fervor of my star struck fancy, 
I search the secret of their wondrous ken. 



Sweet Muse, long have I borne thy burden, 
Upon this all too yielding heart of mine; 
Yet faithful unto death thy ardent lover, 
Therefore my path, the way thou would'st incline. 



Dim in the distance yet within discernment, 
Appears the herald by the seers foretold; 
As eventide but brings those rarer glories, 
Such as the sunset solitudes unfold. 



Prevailing o'er my spirit comes the grieving, 
For the sinful and the sodden ways we choose; 
For blight that's born and bred of vain achieving, 
For all the God like glory which we lose. 



In vain we seek for light where all is darkness, 
In vain we seek to reap where naught was sown ; 
In vain we look for lilies in some pasture 
Where tangled weeds and nettles long have grown. 



117 



A MINOR CHORD. 



Deafened by the din of worldly discord, 
We miss the angel knocking at our door. 
Blinded by the glare of worldly glamor, 
We miss the beacons on the heavenly shore. 



Reluctantly the setting sun is fading, 
But e'er his passing grieves our ling'ring sight, 
New inspiration fires the silent watcher 
Beneath the softer splendors of the night. 



Divining all the signs premonitory. 
Some seers tread the way that leads to God; 
Upon some aged face of heaven lit glory, 
We read the path the gentle soul has trod 



No human eye may gauge the sun at noontide, 
No man may calm the full and cresting wave; 
No man may stem the progress of the spirit, 
And none deny the signs beyond the grave. 



Intent upon some pursuit of the petty, 
Along the stream of life we slowly glide; 
We hug the river's margin slow and muddy, 
And miss the moment of its mighty tide. 



ll; 



For me, some time dear Lord, to voice the music, 
That seeks expression through this shape of clay; 
Some little time, dear Lord, thy lamp a burning, 
To light some pilgrim on the better way. 



TO MY SISTER. 

Fret not, dear heart, full oft' the face 

That wears the glow of pleasure, 

Hides soul that's barred without the grace 

Of virtue's beauteous measure. 

So envy not the laughing face, — 

The robes of yonder dame, 

For better rags with virtue's grace 

Than satin, silks, — and shame. 



Not that I would presume to scan 
My erring sister's ways; 
But virtue by the fiat of man 
Doth earn but scanty praise. 
The hands of vice hold plenty's horn 
Filled up in heaping measure, 
While virtue toils in rags forlorn, 
Her purity her treasure. 



119 



And pity may be kin to love, 
But love and lust are adverse; 
While judgment is to Him above, 
With sin we need no converse. 
When righteousness is weak and faint 
And vice doth all things win, 
I'd sing of her without the taint 
Of satin, silk — and sin. 

Tis not I pity shame the less, 

But love chaste virtue more, 

For virtue oft' needs simple dress 

While shame has gold in store. 

And she who toils from night to morn 

With only rags to dress her, 

May never gold or silk adorn 

Unless her God can bless her. 



WATCHMAN— WHAT OF THE NIGHT? 

Watchman, the night is dark and drear, 
And the wail of the wind is mournful to hear, 
And darkening clouds are gathering near; 
Watchman, — what of the night? 

And the beacon light in the mist grows dim, 
And the face of the waters is dark and grim, 
And the ship is in peril, though staunch and trim: 
Watchman, — what of the night? 



120 

WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT. 

Will the light not fail in the perilous hour? 
Is the lamp well set in the lofty tower? 
Will no one shirk, — will no one cower? 
Watchman, — what of the nisfht? 



Will the signal-man flash the warning sign 
That rouses the watchers adown the line? 
To follow the Captain will none decline? 
Watchman, — what of the night? 

Are the Service men ready with line and oar? 
Is the life-boat pointed towards the shore? 
Is the Captain alert by the open door? 
Watchman, — what of the night? 



Will the good ship weather the tempest's blast? 
Will she pass the Cape to the haven at last? 
Will all report Here! when the storm is past? 
Watchman, — what of the night? 



Will the morrow tell of a fight well fought 
When the morning sees what the night has wrought? 
Was his post of duty by each man sought? 
Watchman, — what of the night? 



Cape Henry, Ya., Sept. 12, 1900. 



121 




Shed on him beauteous moon, 
Love's golden fire." — 



Page 82. 



122 



william Mckinley — in memoriam. 



"In the midst of life we are in death." 

A nation mourns above her martyred Chief; 
Our President, the well -beloved, is dead! 
The noble husband and the gracious son, 
The honored man, the mighty Magistrate, 
Alike his country's pride and country's stay, 
From scenes familiar has been torn away 
To fill a tear-stained and untimely tomb. 

For' — "In the midst of life we are in death." 
The vital stream bounds gladly through the veins, 
The heart beats cadence to life's joyous strain; 
Dim in the distance, Death — to fancy's eye — 
Seems too remote for this day's reckoning. 
Yet, by our side the Reaper's step 
Makes measured paces with our own; 
And while we ponder on the things of life 
He meets us face to face — and draws the veil! 
Upon our cheeks we feel the chilling breath, 
And thus, amid life's ways, we walk with Death. 

Aye — In the midst of life we walk with Death! 
And where the stream of life flows full and fast 
There Death doth often stoop to slake his thirst. 
The busy marts of trade, the pageant's pomp, 
The festal hall, and pleasant paths of peace 
And joy, all know his presence and his touch. 
Sequestered ways, the tumult's nosy camp, 
Great solitudes, the bustling hives of men, 
Hold not one spot secure from his soft step. 

The President is dead! 

But yesterday with kindly eye and voice 

He dwelt among us, and the Ship of State 

Beneath the impulse of his guiding hand 

Sped on serenely. To-day that hand is stilled; 

The form we loved so well is pale in death. 

Crowned with the honors of his high estate, 

Securely bonded to his people's love, 

The honored guest of that fair festal town, 

'Twas there the martyred one was stricken down. 

No time, indeed, was this for Death, no place; 

And yet, 'twas there our loved Chief smiled and stretched 

His hand, to welcome the great Prince of Peace. 



123 



The President is dead! 

The rock-bound road that leads to fame is lined 

With vicious footpads of assorted kind, 

And he that sheds a light amid the dark 

For murd'rous miscreants makes a shining mark. 

Whence came the mandate, out of place and time, 

That he should fall in all his splendid prime 

By hand so base? What cruel spell is flung 

That felons should be left too long unhung? 

Oh, why indeed, "has worth so brief a date," 

While villains linger to life's last estate? 

The ruler, statesman, and the soldier, — dead! 

And not on glory's field his blood was shed, 

But yet no less he fell at duty's call, 

Though base the hand that caused his ill-timed fall. 

Not all the ranting of a ribald creed 

May dim the damnedness of this dreadful deed. 

Not all the floods of lamentation's tears 

May quench the fires of indignation. 

The President is dead! 

The people's choice, and chosen for his worth; 

Chosen of God to bear the martyr's part, 

The tear-stained tribute of his country's heart. 

A nation weeps above his honored clay, 

A world in pity voices heartfelt grief 

For him, who was so ruthless torn away. 

For him who from his toil has found release; 

For him now done with all this troubled life, 

Its tumult, turmoil, and its weary strife. 

God rest his soul, and give his loved ones peace. 

Through bleeding hearts contrition enters in. 

The President is dead! 

The hand of God is heavy on the land; 

But should we question from our narrow view 

The ways of Him who maketh no mistakes? 

Not ours to fathom His mysterious works, 

Not ours to murmur at His mighty plan; 

Man understands alone the ways of man. 

To give us pause, that we might heed His voice 
He marked the martyr for the dastard's blow 
That all might see, and in the seeing know 
Some sacrifice was needed for our sin. 
Through broken hearts contrition enters in. 



124 



So died the Magistrate of this great land, 

The last and best loved of that noble band 

Whose martyrdom has shed divinest light, 

Too often hidden from our worldly sight. 

And it may be to give us pause God smote 

Upon the adamant of heedless hearts, 

That purging waters might gush forth and wash 

Away our sinful imperfections. 

Thus oft' He turns us from our earthly stress 

And leads us back to ways of righteousness. 

And this we know — and let the thought suffice — 

None but the righteous fit such sacrifice. 

The President is dead! 

There is no surer path to God's white throne 
Than through the martyr's grave. Let this atone, 
And prove a sign, that we may seek and read 
Beyond the bitter of this wanton deed. 

But this the story of the pitying years: — 

Before the gaze of mighty multitudes, 

With kindly smile and friendship's hand outstretched 

He welcomed there, unknown, the fatal dart, 

On duty's altar laid his noble heart. 



■T" y-WtWAYJYAY/> 






125 







IN FANCY'S REALM. 



Adovvn the aisles of retrospect, 

And paths where hope's prized seeds are sown: 

There lies a world where none intrude, 

A wondrous world of solitude 

Called "Fancy's Realm," 'tis all our own. 



Two angels rule this radiant realm, 
Pale "Memory" and rosy "Hope," 
The one guards treasures of the past, 
The other's watch is wide and vast, 
With all creation for her scope. 



The press of crowds and stress of trade, 
"The madding throng's ignoble strife"; 
Herein give place to soul's surcease 
And wondrous calm of perfect peace, 
And glimpses of a better life. 
And Sorrow, Joy and Love and Fear, 
White pilgrims, find their haven here. 



126 

IN FANCY'S REALM. 

Phantom shapes move to and fro 
And seem to find a solace there; 
Strange sad thoughts at sunset's glow 
Their mournful message bear. 
And many a kindly spoken word; 
And wondrous music we have heard, 
Breaks o'er the fields of fancy. 



Sometimes Remorse, a restless ghost, 
With sad Regret stalks hand in hand; 
And all the heart ache and the fret 
That fringe pale memory's silhouette 
Comes forth to meet them on the strand. 



Anon — to love and joy and light, 

This fairy world is all akin! 

Fades fast before the wondrous sight 

All tears, for that which "might have been. 

'Tis then with hearts that cannot fail 

We mount, and draw aside the veil, 

And find the truth — There is no sin. 



In Fancy's realm the soul is free 
To probe the world's great mystery. 
The mind's discourse of "This and That" 
The piteous plaint of "Rubaiyat," 
Finds answer in this sweet and lone 
Enchanted world, that's all our own. 



127 

HE THAT ASPIRETH. 



But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue.' 



'Tis ever the same old story, 

Told 'mid our tears and pain, 

Of the toil that knew no recompense 

And the hazard that knew no gain. 

Of the well meant plans of our hearts and hands, 

Of the flame unfalt'ringly fanned, 

To the work well wrought, 

And the ones we sought, 

Who did not understand. 



Tis ever the bitter story 

Which the gentle have learned full well, 

Of the reign of vice, and a paradise 

By its tenants turned to a hell. 

Of the venture cast, and the promise past, 

And the soul that was left forlorn; 

And the sneering scan of the "business" man, 

And the blight of the proud one's scorn. 



12S 



HE THAT ASPIRETH. 

'Tis ever the same old story, 

Set to our soul's refrain, 

Of the envious fool, and the thieving ghoul, 

And the pompous clown's disdain. 

And the cold surprise of the piercing eyes, 

Of the "leading" man of the town, 

A cad, who thought wise from his gilt Jisgu>s^, 

When he did not know — to frown. 

Tis ever the same old story 

Told 'mid our tears and pain, 

Of the toil that knew no recompense 

And the hazard that knew no gain. 

Of the one who would, and thought he could 

Some smouldering love warmth fan, 

To the vulgar brood who deemed they should 

Decry so "vain" a plan. 

'Tis ever the same sad story 

With melancholy fraught, 

Of they who would teach 

The good within reach, 

And the world that would not be taught. 

Of the wonderful web by fancy wove, 

With its soft, soul set design, 

To the finding our love with its treasure trove, 

But the pearls that were "cast to swine." 

Note: — For the first verse of the above some acknowl- 
edgment is due Mr. Kipling. 



129 

THE TEMPLE OF MAMMON. 



The Temple of Mammon is set on the highway, 

Its steps are of marble, its aspect is bold; 

And wide though its entrance, and easy of access, 

A sinister challenge its portals enfold, 

For this is the Temple, the awe 'spiring Temple, 

The wonderful Temple of Gold. 



And Envy and Pride, and Lust and Greed 

Are visitors welcome here, 

And they swear by a mystic golden creed 

As they quaff of the golden cheer; 

The heartless creed, the soul stunting creed, 

The creed that knows never a tear. 



And here is the acme of hopes that join 

And wed us, to tears and moans; 

And I hear 'mid the cadence of clinking coin, 

The rattle of dead men's bones; 

The horrible rattle! The soul shaking rattle! 

The rattle of dead men's bones! 



130 

THE TEMPLE OF MAMMON*. 

Pale is the face and set are the lips 

Of the man who bends over the page; 

And deft are the fingers, and keen is the eye 

Of the one in the brass bound cage; 

The gold-girt man; the brass-bound man; 

The intensely keen man, of the cage. 

And the president sits, like the vulture, that flits 

O'er the field when the battle is won; 

And he '■gathers the gear" of his golden cheer, 

When the stress of the work day is done; 

The "settlement" day, the ''mortgage due" day; 

The day that the Banking House won. 



Oh, the Temple of Mammon was reared by the men 

Who cherish the "golden creed"; 

Of the "rule" they care naught, and the world they have 

taught, 
To follow their "financial" lead; 
So great is the Temple! And rich is the Temple! 
The soul slaying Temple of Greed! 



To have and to hold is the story that's told, 

By the lights burning bright in the day; 

So they skim of the shift — of the golden drift. 

As they follow its glittering way. 

And this is the story, the very old story. 

The story of metal and clav. 



131 



THE NEWSBOY'S ADDRESS. 



A boy saved up for the Christmastide 

Sundry pieces of coin; 
And many a trifle himself denied 

That loved ones might share and join 
In the gifts and the cheer of the Christmas 

day; 
For a hero he was in his boyish way, 
And longed for the smiles that would amply 
repay 

The gifts from his harbored coin. 

But he counted alas, — as youth is prone — 

On things as they ought to be, 
Only to find that his dream had flown 

At Fate's unkind decree. 
There was "doctors, an' med'cines, an' folks 

out o' work," 
And the boy was never a one to shirk: 
With the heart of a Christian he wasn't a 
Turk, 

So his savings went for a fee. 

And it might have been me, or it might have 
been you 

Back in the fading past, 
Who saved up our pennies so hard and so 
few, 

Till we got them together at last 
And purchased a memory free from alloy — 
The smile of a gentle mother's joy, 
As she read in the gift of her happy boy 

The love that was faithful and fast. 

Now a word to the wise, and a hint to the 
heart, 
Is the meaning this verse will convey, 
That you who have plenty may add a small 
part 
To the Newsboy's pleasure to-day. 
Remember your boyhood, when life was a 

song ; 
Remember your hero — so big and so strong — 
Who gaA r e you a quarter to help you along 
And made your young heart so gay! 



132 

ANCIENT, HONORABLE, WELCOME. 

In Commemoration of the visit of the Ancient and Honorable Ar- 
tillery Company of Boston, Mass., to Norfolk, Va. 

A glittering host of Eostonese 

Are on our soil to-day, 
With banners, flags and stirring airs 

They march in glad array. 
We throw the gates of friendship wide 

And hail them — Brothers, all! — 
With hearty cheers that echo to 

The doors of Faneuil Hall. 

No stint in fair Virginia's heart, 

No check upon her hand; 
No discord in the greeting note 

Of welcome to her strand. 
She knows them for her very own 

By every ancient sign, 
By race, by creed, by tongue, by flag, 

And heritage divine. 

They'll toast our Old Dominion's sons, 

We'll toast New England's stock; 
They'll drink to grand old Jamestown. 

And we'll give them Plymouth Rock. 
They'll tell us of their noble sires, 

We'll claim them kin and kith! 
And if they brag of Captain Keayne 

We'll give 'em Captain Smith! 

We quarreled forty years ago 

And Pride hissed out — " 'tis treason." 
Both sides were right in the wiser sight 

But Passion conquered Reason. 
And the bonds of brotherhood were broke', 

In America — long blest: 
And Freedom gasped, and Havoc woke! 

And Mercy stood distressed. 

But that's gone by, and a peaceful sky 

Bends over a land united; 
The Blue and Grey are one to-day 

And all past wrongs are righted. 
The eagle soars above us all, 

And North, South, East and West, 
Columbia's sons salute the flag 

And hail its mission blest. 





138 



The Sentiment. 

Up on your feet — hands outstretched — 

Clasp! to the Blue and the Grey! 
Friendship and love hold sway above 

Where they sleep the years away. 
Cheers — for the Yankee troops that stood! 

And Cheers — for the "Rebs" that rushed 
them! 
But tears — for the torrent of hero's blood, 

And the cruel fate that crushed them. 




SAD IS THE SONG OF THE SEA. 

When tortured by tempest, in passion and pain, 
While .wild winds are wailing a weird refrain, 
How solemn the sound, and the sight of the sea — 
How mournful the might of its mad majesty! 

Its mantle of mourning arraying the beach 
Gleams white in the light o'er the desolate reach, 
Where wild winds and waters their symphony merge 
And "roar in a requiem — die in a dirge." 

The offing all sodden, and nature in tears 
Seems weeping in vain for the sunshine that cheers, 
Impressing the sense that of sad days — to me — 
There's no day so sad as a sad day at sea. 

The desolate dunes, and the sombre gray shore 
Seem lost to the light of the sun evermore; 
The wail of the tempest is mournful to hear, 
The tenantless tower looks even more drear. 

Oh, doleful the prospect! the sky full of woe 
Sheds vears on the world with no end to the flow, 
Prompting the thought — that no strain is to me 
More soulfully sad than the song of the sea. 



Thus pensive I pondered, repining in vain 

For sunshine of youth that would ne'er come again; 

And likened my life to the lamenting lay 

Of billows that break on a desolate day. 



134 



NOT FORGOTTEN. 



"O friends! forget not, as you laugh and play, 
Some that were laughing with you yesterday." 

— Rubaiyat. 



Say not that we forget them, 
The dear familiar faces; 
Their thousand acts of kindness 
And their sweet and loving ways. 
A sister's earnest sympathy, 
A mother's fond embraces, 
And the sunny smiles of welcome 
Which we knew in happier days. 




They're gone but not forgotten 

Are our friends of yesterday; 

We remember them in sorrow, 

Full often in our play. 

And the heart must cease its throbbing, 

And the mind must leave its throne, 

Ere it cease to make its pilgrimage 

To their resting place so lone. 



13: 
NOT FORGOTTEN. 

'Mid the busy hives of human life, 
The marts of trade, — the street, 
Places that once knew them, 
Tis there we often meet. 
And sometimes a simple saying 
Comes when we least expect, 
To send our thoughts a straying 
Down the aisles of retrospect. 



I remember an inscription 
That is 'graved upon a stone: 
"Stranger pause and ponder 
As you pass this way so lone; 
For once I was as you are now, 
As I am, — you will be. 
So, stranger, well prepare thyself 
For death, — and follow me. 



Oh, ye blessed lost and loved ones 

Who will nevermore return, 

For your gentle hearts and faces 

Our hearts full often yearn. 

On Mem'ry's deathless scroll your names 

By Love's own hand is traced, 

And on your graves Affection has 

Her rarest garland placed. 



136 



WORK. 



FOR THE DAYLIGHT 

WANETH. 



"O, God, make me to remember that 
the night cometh when no man can 
work." — Samuel Johnson. 

Work, for the daylight waneth, 

Work, for the night comes fast; 
Work, for thy rest is sweeter 

When daytime's toil is past. 
What though thy burden chafe thee, 

What though thy feet be sore? 
Soon shall the night shades lower 

When man may work no more. 

On, though thy road be weary, 

On, though thou faint with heat; 
Over the hills and river 

Is rest that's passing sweet. 
Work through the gloom of sorrow, 

Work, though thy toil seems vain, 
Work, for the day that's passing 

Will never come again. 

"Work for the night is coining," 

Work ere the sunlight fades; 
Work, for thou soon must traverse 

The silent land of shades. 
Work, for the world is waiting 

To welcome willing toil; 
Sow while the sun is shining 

Seeds in the ready soil. 

Westward the daylight lingers. 

Eastward the shadows stray: 
"Work, for the night is coming." 

That ushers the Reckoning Day! 
Work, for the Lord it waiting 

To send the Reaper down, 
He will judge of the harvest 

That awaits His smile or frown. 



^3¥^ 





137 
UNCLE SAM, HIS HOME, AND FLAG. 



A great big friend of all the world 

Is your genial Uncle Sam, 
And he has no need to pose and strut 

As the only great "I am!" 
He knows there are others as big as himself, 

But on this he makes his brag — 
That there's none so happy, and none so free, 

As the millions under his flag! 

Then it's eyes front — guide right — 

Dress to your uncle's flag! 
It's an emblem pure that can endure 

Without the aid of brag. 
Light of the hopeless, hope of the slave 

It was, and ever shall be; 
So it's stand by — hats off 

To the flag of liberty! 

The eagle's standard tops them all — 

'Rah! for the eagle-bird, 
And the rest stand 'round and lie to the ground 

When his piercing voice is heard. 
In his talons keen there may be seen 

A flag — red, white, and blue; 
And he bears it high in the golden sky 

For Freedom's sons to view. 

Then it's rally, boys — cheer, boys — 

'Rah! for the eagle's home! 
Built of the hills and the plains and the lakes, 

With the great sky for its dome. 
And 'rah! for the stretch of the eagle's wing 

That covers this Western world; 
And a dozen or more for the sand in his craw, 

And the flag that shall never be furled! 

The battle-line, the bloody breach, 

Have seen its folds of flame, 
Where dripping steel and the shrapnel's screech 

Were all a part of the game. 
But the boys "stood pat" for all of that, 

And the flag "stayed put" where they took it, 
And though heroes fell in a rain of hell — 

Yet never a man forsook it! 



138 



Then it's steady, boys — ready, boys — 

For the banner of liberty! 
The flag that blesses hill and plain 

And kisses the bounding sea. 
Light of the hopeless, hope of the world! 

Mankind it ever shall bless; 
May it shed its light till the world is bright 

And its shadow never grow less! 




END OF THE CENTURY ECLIPSE. 

From out the grey expanse of eastern ocean 

In regal splendor mounts the sun once more. 

The willing world renews her ancient homage, 

All nature springs to meet him and adore. 

A thousand cities wake beneath his beams, 

The world enchanted smiles beneath his sway; 

And plains and mountains, brooks and mighty streams 

Renew their fealty to the god of day. 

But lately risen in such full and glorious majesty, 
What shape is that intrudes athwart his path? 
What tarnish mars the glory of his visage 
And dims the splendor of his sovereign smile? 
Spreading a gathering pall as of the night 
That with rapacious, clasp enthralls 
The land, the sea, the air, the light. 



13<» 
END OF THE CENTURY ECLIPSE. 

And even as inquiring eyes are raised 

The shadow deepens and the darkness comes. 

Before the onrush of dissembling night 

The day is fast departing. 

Or can it be that from a world of shame 

The servant of Omnipotence doth hide his face? 

The silent combat rages — the foe prevails, 

And now his conquest is complete! 

To bind the frightful victory 

See where the darkened cavalry advance 

From out the west! Silent as doom, 

Swift as the pinions of imagination, 

The mighty shadow rushes down 

Upon a trembling world. 

The sovereign lord of life and light constrained, 

Xow leaves his offspring to a sunless fate, 

And lo! a world transformed! 

A world of darkness and of chill, 

A trembling pit of funereal gloom. 

The ribald jest is hushed, 

The foolish tongue is stilled. 

The vicious and the sinful stand abashed 

Before this lesser frown of God. 

Eyes which long had sought 

Down in the dust, a coin, look up 

And marvel with a quaking heart. 

The multitudes are mute 

As with uplifted face they read the sign 

That God is Lord of all. 



140 



And when this shadow of a false night fell, 

A vision in that startled minute crushed 

Of that dread day to come 

When God shall search the souls of men. 

Sordid minds and stunted hearts 

From out the by-ways of a narrow life 

For once look up, and even as they look 

The frown is lifted. Like token of forgiveness 

Breaks out the splendor of his smile once more; 

A sign to some who read, that darkened deeds 

Can hold but short and transient sway; 

And emblem of the prospect 

Which the virtuous soul shall see 

When death himself withdraws the veil. 



Norfolk, Va., May 28, 1900. 



IN MEMORIAM — A MAIDEX. 



"To know her was to love her, 
To name her was to praise." 

It seems but yesterday that thou, sweet maid. 
With hand outstretched and happy, smiling 

face, 
Didst dwell among us and our circle grace. 
But now, alas — the sexton's cruel spade 
Hath filled above where thy loved form was 

laid. 
AVe miss and mourn thy gentle voice and 

cheer : 
Thy kindly ways, and grace: and drop love's 

tear 
Upon thy grave: nor will thy image fade 
From out our memory while life doth last. 
To thy pure soul God's mysteries are plain: 
All sin and sorrow thou hast safely passed, 
All worldly longings and all earthly pain. 
Farewell, sweet girl, — the angels loved thee 

best 
And took thee hence to God's eternal rest. 




141 




142 



DEDICATIONS. 



To a Brother Rhymster. 

You ask me for a line of verse. 

"Just for a kindly token." 
Something witty, brief and terse, 

That's better writ' than spoken. 
But you who rhyme no doubt have found 

The Muse is oft' unruly, 
And that is why I'm now compelled 

To briefly sign — Yours truly. 



TO MY FRIEND FRANK FOSTER. 



When Memory takes a backward look 

Adown the vale of life. 
She views full many a pleasing scene 

Untouched with care and strife. 
And so I stray, my dear friend Frank. 

And fain would linger longer, 
'Mid scenes where you were by my side 

In days when we were younger. 

TO WM. I. JONES. 



Once more, dear friend, my willing Muse 

Indites some lines to thee. 
Rememb'ring all the courtesies 

That thou hast shown to me. 

When first I saw thy genial face 

I felt a friend Id found. 
And time has only tightened ties 

That from the first were sound. 

You've slept beneath my humble roof, 
You've "feasted" at my board: 

You've praised the good in this poor bock 
And all the bad ignored. 

And if in Fame's resplendent fane 

■• I rest, e'en for a day, 
I'll gladly name you 'mong the few 
That helped me on the way. 

A cheering friend on life's rough road 

For much despair atones, 
And that is why I'll ne'er forget 

Dear William Irvine Jones. 









143 
TO ANNIE C. 



I could not, would not if I could 

Forget you, Annie dear, 
For you have been among the few 

My lonesome life to cheer. 
And that you may remember me 

Until your sun be set, 
I give this book and sign myself 

Sincerely George Viett. 




ST. MICHAEL'S BELLS. 

Welcome as answer to some earnest prayer, 
In memory's temple breaks melody rare 

From bells of the saintly name, 

Bells of the ancient fame, 

Bells of the stately dame 

Charleston, the fair. 

And the heart beats in cadence to mem'ry's refrain, 
And bells of St. Michael's I hear thee again 

Melody dealing, 

Heavenward stealing, 

For souls appealing! 

Appeal not in vain. 



144 

ST. MICHAEL'S BELLS. 

Waking still Sabbaths with soft melody, 
Tuning heart strings to their sweet harmony, 

Soul incense flinging, 

Balm in their ringing, 

Plaintively singing 

To sad souls of men. 

Chimes of the chaste church which rears o'er the sod 
A shrine where sweet Faith holds communion with God; 

Long may thy music rare 

Burst on the amor'us air 

Eager to waft thy prayer 

Up, up, to God. 

In dreams now I hear them yet, seeming to say 
Return thou again to thy childhood's sweet day; 

For false is the seeming, 

And vain is the scheming, 

And idle the dreaming 

On Vanity's way. 

Plaintive thy melody, sad is thy song, 

Pleading the cause of the right 'mid the wrong; 

Tolling in sadness, 

Pealing in gladness, 

Clashing in madness, 

While years speed along. 



145 



Bells of that summer land kissing the sea, 
Often in dreams comes thy music to me; 
Bearing a message from days that were bright 
With pictures of hope that have passed. 





THE PASSING TJXE OF GREY. 

Another year across the gulf of time 
Has flown, and now, as in their sturdy prime, 
The veterans march with slow and solemn tread 
To consecrate anew the mansions of their dead. 

"Attenuate by death" these less'ning lines 
Move on; and I/ove her fairest garland twines 
For those whose faces from their wonted place 
Have passed, to swell the ranks of their immortal 
race. 

With falt'ring steps, and forms bent with the years, 
Out on parade amid their children's cheers, 
Are those who blazoned on Fame's deathless page 
The crimson record of a nation's righteous rage. 

Turn back the pages of time's tome and read 

That matchless record! fit for hero's creed. 

This is the remnant of that splendid band 

Whose deeds immortalized the manhood of this land. 

And why should not each heart responsive thrill? 

The ancient hero-flame is burning still! 

The sacred altars are not dead and cold 

For younger priests are standing firm beside the old. 



146 



Flowers today — and prayers — and some wet eyes 
Above where our "defeated valor lies:" 
And peaceful pageantry; yet to the mind 
Appears again a pageantry of sterner kind! 

Imbosomed in yon halting line of grey 

A nations history is shrined! Today 

Upon the shores of memory's retreat 

Once more the melancholy, restless surges heat. 

And now again the dauntless lines of grey 

Are marshalled in the battle's grim array! 

Again the Starry Cross — lit by the flame 

Of hostile fire — leads on the deathless sons of fame! 

Xe of the newer race! This is the sign 

That greets ye from the past in yon grey line, — 

The pathos, and the power, and the pride, 

That signals back to us o'er time's relentless tide. 

And this the token that my spirit sees — 

That yonder — in the far-set centuries, 

They'll envy us who lived this day of grace 

And rubbed our elbows with this noble, knightly race. 

Their eyes are dim, their race is nearly run, 
Their faces set towards the sinking sun; 
Each year they march still fewer than the last, 
Soon will they be of those that touched our hands — 
and passed. 

Their flag is furled; but time can never dim 
The glory and the chivalry of him 
Who led these men, defying half a world 
Against their thin grey lines in flooding numbers 
hurled! 

What prouder privilege than this could be — 
To grasp the hand that grasped the hand of Lee? 
To hear the voice that Stonewall Jackson heard? 
To know the man whose heart the glance of Johnston 
stirred? 

What of the dead? they are no more nor less 

Than what they were when at the Wilderness, 

Or Gettysburg, their noble lives they gave 

For liberty, and their dear Southland's cause to save. 

Hands out! Hats off! Withhold not your applause 
From those who fought in Freedom's holy cause; 
Their lines are growing thinner with the years! 
Cheers for the living, then, and for the dead — your 
tears. 

— Confederate Memorial Day, 1905. 







147 



fKntont Urttera mb jRptripforra. 



"The age culls simples 
With a broad clown's back turned broadly 
To the glory of the stars." 

Hail ! blest Parnassus ! Poet's mystic soil, 

Whereof we dream, wherefore we ply our toil; 

Thy groves are ravaged, and thy Muse's hymn 

To tatters torn by the vandal's vim. 

And noxious weeds are with thy flowers entwined, 

Thy peaceful pathways to the mob consigned; 

Thy temple's tainted with pollution's touch, 

It's shining symbols in the caitiff's clutch. 

The mandate that would rout this raucous band 

Must bear the imprint of a master hand; 

But where is he! who shall the challenge shout 

To put this mob to ignominious rout ? 

Columbia! Sweet bride of Liberty, 
I would not give one needless pang to thee; 
But thou must sorrow for those golden days, 
When matchless prose blent with thy poet's praise. 
When Bryant built his fame on beauty's base, 
And Irving charmed our world wide Saxon race. 
When Webster from a giant trophies rung, 
And o'er the land his flashing brilliance flung. 
And Paine, that shining light of Freedom's lover, 



148 

MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

Dealt kings a blow from which they'll ne'er recover. 

Susceptive Poe, who shrank at blockhead's rant, 

To Ingersoll who braved the hosts of cant. 

All gone, alas! and in the land they graced, 

The gentle Muses by a wild mob chased; 

The scribblers charging with their vain alarms, 

Make empty kitchens and neglected farms. 

Upon the right a howling host of "lyrics," 

And on the left a mob of morbid "critics"; 

And 'tween these ranks a fearful gazing few, 

Who know not where to turn, nor what to do. 

'Mid printing presses, paper mills and ink, 

The poor untutored remnant scarce can think. 

Negro "poets" annihilate the tongue, 

And rhyme their cake walks where Longfellow sung. 

And bruiser Jeffries treads my Shakespeare's stage, 

With strenuous fervor and "Poetic rage." 

Some Georgia poet of his, "melon" sings, 

And rant and rhyming o'er the nation rings. 

Some chap that sells his soap upon the street, 

Breaks into verse and does your ear entreat; 

And when you will not list his "soulful" sigh, 

He publishes his paper for your eye. 

Songwriters vile, our wearied nerves assail 

With tawdry melody or dismal wail. 

Those chaps who write, they claim "to please the masses/* 

And not (as if they could), "to please the classes"; 

Hence printing presses working overtime 

For maudlin music set to motley rhyme. 



149 
MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

A startling "genius" finds "a tired head" 

Makes rhythmic music with "to bed, to bed!" 

Inspired maidens, and whole college crews, 

And idle ladies, woo the tired Muse. 

Assuming airs that nauseate the wise 

Some empty youngster for distinction tries. 

The time's incompetence is plainly seen 

Upon the pages of each magazine. 

And some "light" furnishes the "latest novel," 

Who should be toiling with a pick and shovel. 

The Navy, once renowned for rippling curses, 

Brings forth a Tar, who writes a "book of verses"; 

Who many a salty inspiration caught 

'Mid strong "head winds," and grievous "list to port." 

No way sequestered and no path secure 

From trash and rubbish which we must endure. 



Some vain dramatic tinker, tried and true, 

Delights the masses and disgusts the few; 

Oh, why will people their poor rubbish choose, 

Grasp gaudy gilt, and purest gold refuse? 

Now Hamlet speaks his lines to empty stalls, 

While "horse play" packs and jams the bursting walls; 

The audience their wishes emphasize, 

Applaud pollution, and worth "patronize." 

So sorry substance in a gaudy dress 

Is fitted to their mental feebleness. 

But yet be thankful for the goodly few, 

Who bow to merit and give worth its due. 



150 

MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

Sad shades of Shakespeare, Pope and Thomas Moore! 
Tread their old haunts, and modern dross deplore; 
And wonder when the world will frame a song- 
To bear the burden of their strain along. 
Beset by rhymsters, lacking needful pelf, 
Sometime perchance, I'll turn the trick myself; 
Folks looking round to find the one who wrought it 
And finding me, will murmur "who'd a thought it?" 

Ye ancient bards, who set the world ablaze! 
Presumptuous he who writes these simple lays. 
Yet though unworthy in thy mighty view, 
In one respect he beats the best of you; 
No scratching pen for him! nor ink pot mean, 
He writes his poetry on a "Yost" machine. 

Some perverse power and unconscious chance 
Alike on mortals break their wanton lance; 
And wisdom, frequent fool of that same fate, 
That fools with fortune often compensate. 
A language teacher scarcely can exist, 
A "ball" man's paid a fortune for his "twist." 
Miss Scandalous draws furs around her form, 
While Virtue lacks the rags to keep her warm. 

Oh, Age of Tinsel! Age of strange device! 
Our lamentations and our tears entice; 
For each unmeasured strain bears evidence 
Of soulless precept and of want of sense. 



151 

MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

The self same metal, but a different touch, 
To form an axle and to make a watch; 
Yet still we see despite of nature's plan 
Some soulful goal sought by a soulless man. 
And here a "poet," there a man of "letters," 
Attempting what he should leave to his betters. 

Persistent "writers" whom no frown could tame, 

By publishers are passed to fading fame; 

Undaunted stands the "literary" crew, 

And faith, there's nothing left for me and you. 

And 'mid a mass of mediocrity 

Meek talent seeks in vain for sympathy. 

Satiric power it were vain to ask, 

For Momus stands appalled at the great task. 

Persistent poachers in the paths of prose! 
Your thieving aptness every writing shows. 
Vulgar intruders in the realms of rhyme! 
Here's at you all! I know no better time. 
And though I shortly may in vain repent 
This terse and timely admonition lent, 
Yet still my Muse impels the thankless task, 
And when she bids, no respite may I ask. 

I sometimes dream of that sweet, happy age, 
When fools will vanish from this earthly stage; 
When all the world with wisdom will be crowned, 
And right, and love, and beauty will abound; 
When men will cease their panting race for pelf; 
But then — alas! I will be dead mvself. 



152 

MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

But oh, to live in that divinelier age 
When man will reap his rightful heritage. 
When Poet's volumes will be bound in gold 
And angel readers all their charms unfold; 
When daily items we will read from Mars, 
And hold wise converse with more distant stars. 
When every soul that comes unto the earth 
Will mark a Prince and not a pauper's birth. 
When each will fill his own appointed place 
And no one seek to foul his neighbor's race. 
But now we murmur at the prospect drear, 
For fools still venture where the angels fear. 

Forbear, oh thou vain man! of little art, 

To voice a song that is not in thy heart. 

Nor seek to swell some heavenly anthem's chord, 

To which thy puny soul does not accord. 

Nor dare assume the aspect of a saint 

And think to mask thy world deceit and taint, 

Nor in the clammy arms of vice to take 

Fair virtue for thine own, for her sweet sake. 

With touch that knows but shoddy, thou dost tear 

The silken fabric that the Muses wear. 

With rough shod feet, no incense in thy hands, 

Thou seekest temples in enchanted lands. 

Unqualified, ungodly and untaught, 

Still dare to seek the secret soul of thought. 

And sound the depths of beauty's boundless flood 

From out the shallows of a stream of mud. 

From snare of lies, that knows nor calm, nor ruth, 

Thou would'st assume the shining robe of Truth! 



153 
MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

Fame's beacon lures! thou canst not follow it 
Ashore on shoals of thy poor shallow wit; 
And seeing better pilots pass thee by, 
To foul their passage thou dost vainly try. 
Infernal Envy! oft' we feel his spell, 
That hateful harbinger of horrid hell! 



The Muse's favorites are not thy kind, 

Their gifts not tossed to every careless wind; 

They pass the "pompous," no "purse proud" endow, 

And place their garlands on some modest brow. 

The dainty domain where the Muses dwell, 

Holds Beauty's bower, and fair Wisdom's well; 

And those who seek an entrance there to gain, 

Must walk in modesty and bear no stain. 

The shallow pretense and the petty pride 

Within that wondrous realm cannot abide. 

Presumption there no edifice may rear, 

No din discordant jars the tuneful ear. 

But thou! that can'st the gentle Muse entice, 

Heed well these lines which deck some small advice; 

Advice- that's cheap and therefore freely given 

To pave thy way aright, perchance to Heaven. 

Take Wisdom to thy heart and clasp her close, 

Sift through discernment's sieve the dust of dross. 

Be quick to learn from every source some lesson, 

Give goodly thoughts the goodliest expression. 

And be assured, oh, thou aspiring youth, 

To be a poet" thou must tell the truth. 



154 



MODERN WRITERS AND REVIEWERS. 

Fear thou base flattery as a foul thing, 
Let poetasters to its false words cling; 
To worth it adds not in the least degree, 
To tyros leave it, it is not for thee. 
And good or bad thy lines — the test will show it 
False praise or hate despite; the wise will know it. 
Leave fools to flatt'ry which on folly feeds, 
And fence thy flowers from a world of weeds. 
Nor deem the praise of some corrupted sheet 
That knows naught but the "wisdom" of the street, 
Availeth aught a Poet's work to laud! 
For gutter garlands are a graceless gaud. 

Before thy service in the Muse's "guards," 

Read "Byron's "Horace," likewise "English Bards;" 

And finding naught to dampen thy ambition — 

A Poet thou! whatever thy condition. 

Far better one than I, who pen this lay 

To rack the follies of my little day, 

Which done, I'll wait my ship, that long I've sought, 

My phantom ship afloat on tides of thought. 




*»fc-fc*MHi-«^ctfr^- r Yfr ■"■{■>-? 



155 



Itirgtnta ^alutamua ! 




Christened "Virginia" by the little daugh- 
ter of Governor Montague, the ship destined 
to be the pride of the American Navy was 
launched at Newport News yesterday. 

— Daily Newspaper. 



The fairest of the sister States, 
The mother of a mighty land, 

Receives thee at her ocean gates 

And lays on thee her spotless hand — 
Virginia ! 

The grand old State that pressed the brow 
Of tyrants in her scornful dust, 

Gives thee her name. Be this thy vow — 
To never yield her sacred trust, 
Virginia ! 

Bear this inscription on thy shield, 

And in thy heart; — and make it good, — 

"Virginia never left the field 

Of honor, while one foeman stood." 
Virginia! 



156 



No coward e'er must tread the deck 
Of ship that bears such honored name; 

No loeman's fire must ever check 
Or dim the splendor of thy fame, 
Virginia! 

When in the lists thy gage is flung, 
Be sure at whom that gage is hurled; 

Be not forgetful of the tongue 

That binds thee to the Saxon world, 
Virginia! 

To fire thy soul if other need 

Than that proud banner at thy mast, 
Recall thy name! then let the deed 

Of valor greet the honored past; 
Virginia ! 

So when the dreadful shock of war 
Shall close about thee on the sea, 

Then shall you call up deeds of yore 
And all thy namesake's chivalry, 
Virginia ! 

But if fell fortune's front should bear 
Against thee, 'mid the hostile roar, 

Remember, — Yankee ships may dare 
What Yankee ships have done before! 
Virginia! 

Then let the reddened waters roll 

Between the foeman's fleet and thee! 

What matter — if thou hast the soul 
Of Washington and Robert Lee? 
Virginia ! 



157 



LOVE'S ADMIRATION. 



The glow of soul shine in thine eyes 
With angel's might compare, 
For richer than rich summer skies 
The wealth of love light there. 
And thy divinely beauteous brow, 
And form of rarest grace, 
Might match a Seraph's, and endow 
That Seraph's glorious place. 




Bright eyes that beam celestial light 

Like some twin stars of Heaven, 

Pure as the stream from snowy height 

That knows no earthy leaven. 

Soft eyes — that soothe my soul's unrest 

With pledge of Paradise, 

Beneath their beams I'm wondrous blestj 

Their love light doth suffice. 




158 



LOVE'S ADMIRATION. 

Thy voice is like sweet music rare 
That breaks o'er scenes enchanted, 
Thy tenderness like morn's fresh air 
To prisoned pilgrims granted. 
Thou art as some half opened rose, 
That nods the day farewell, 
The witchery thy charms disclose, 
I feel, but cannot tell. 



There's rapture in thy pensive eye, 
There's music in thy laughter; 
There's Heaven in thy sympathy, 
And sigh that follows after. 
All fret beneath thy glance is stilled, 
Thy "Cupid's bow" is token 
Of promises all unfulfilled, 
And yet withal — unbroken. 





Then let me guide thy steps, sweet love 

Along life's rugged way, 

And ne'er a pilot false I'll prove 

To lead such feet astray. 

I'll lift thee o'er the ills of life, 

And deem the burden blest, 

If thou wilt be mine own sweet wife — 

My loved and life-long guest. 




159 



THE MARRIAGE OF HUNGER AND THIRST. 



When Hell's adventurous Chief set forth 

On the journey that ended here, 

There followed right after 

With hideous laughter, 

Fell fiends their standards to rear. 

And many the monsters new scenes to imbibe, 

That traversed the track of this terrible tribe. 



And Madness and Torment, Poverty, Wealth, 

Were loosed o'er the shivering earth; 

And a house warming revel 

Was held by the Devil; 

And Rapine and Havoc had birth. 

And Death turned the furrows, and Sin sowed the wind, 

And planted the plagues that have poisoned mankind. 

The hell hound named Hunger took Thirst by the hand, 

And whispered these words in her ear, 

"I think if we'd marry 

No mortal could parry 

The thrust of our pain tempered spear." 

And so came the marriage by men ever curst, 

The maledict marriage of Hunger and Thirst.. 



160 

THE MARRIAGE OF HUNGER AND THIRST. 

This withering pair breathed a blight on the air, 

And manifold multitudes paled: 

And Death, the grim reaper, 

Recked not of the weeper, 

Or the cowering wretches that quailed; 

Nor heeded the wail of their "unpardoned sin," 

But grimly, right grimly — he gathered them in. 

And Hunger and Thirst racked body and soul, 

And Pain and Disease lent a hand; 

These furies well mated 

Were never yet sated, 

Though gorged with the best of the land. 

And finding mankind not enough for their feast, 

They seized on the insect, the bird and the beast. 

But brief is their revel, thank God comes the day 

When back to Hell's pit they'll be hurled! 

And Satan, King sinner, 

Will not be the winner 

When Judgment morn breaks on the world. 

His hell hosts shall shrink at the Archangel's sword, 

And wither and perish at "glance of the Lord!" 

Appalled they will perish at "glance of the Lord!" 




161 




"Melody dealing, Heavenward stealing." — Page 143. 



162 



THE CITY OF "BROTHERLY LOVE. 



"The crusade against street beggars goes merrily on. A blind man 
who became impertinent to an officer when ordered to desist playing 
on Walnut street was arrested. Thirty-seven men with no visible 
means of support were<taken to the station and gvien twenty- 
four hours to leave town. It is proposed to make Philadelphia a most 
unpleasant place for beggars and tramps. Yesterday was one of the 
coldest days of the season, the mercury rising but little above the zero 
mark throughout the day." — Philadelphia correspondence of a Pitts- 
burg paper about 1895. 



And bleak was the blast of the bitter north wind 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 
And some in fine wrappings its wrath did not mind 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 
But some wretches shivered in pitiful rags, 
For the north wind that fluttered a thousand bright flags 
Was cold as the blast o'er Alaska's bleak crags 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 

Not colder, alas, than the hearts of the crowd 

In the city of "Brotherly Love;" 
For none are more callous, ungracious and proud 

Than they of this city of "Love." 
And a blind musician grew mute with a sigh, 
And a hunger-racked beggar slunk off, perhaps to die; 
"Is pity like A^engeance alone from on High?" 

They asked, in this city of "Love." 

And the figure of Penn looked down on the stones 

Of the city of "Brotherly Love," 
And he started amazed at misery's moans 

In his city of "Brotherly Love;" 
He saw that his children to Mammon were sold, 
And marveled that men should be made in such mould, 
And shivered — but not from the wintry wind cold 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 

Alas for the stranger who seeks for a friend 

In the city of "Brotherly Love," 
For bitter heart-burnings his quest will attend 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 
The gentle or vulgar, the blind and the lame, 
An angel or devil, it is all the same 
To those who rejoice to reside as they claim 

In the city of "Brotherly Love." 



163 



Love's altar is desolate, dead are its fires 

In the city of "Brotherly Love;" 
As dead as the faith of the founders and sires 

Of the city of "Brotherly Love." 
Its pretense is all a delusion and snare, 
No place is so hitter, so hleak and so hare, 
And none gives the stranger so steely a stare 
As the city of "Brotherly Love." 



HAIL! BRITHER POETS A' 



(Written in a volume of Scottish Poems.) 

Right weel I've scanned these pages o'er, 
Sae gladsome filled \vi' Scottish lore, 
And mem'ries o' the days o' yore 

In rich profusion; 
Yet finding 'mid such goodly store 

My ain confusion. 

Auld Scotia's hred a mighty throng 
O' warriors bold and bards o' song; 
Wad that I might their strain prolong, 

Or swell their praise; 
But that wad tax a pen mair strong 

Than I can raise. 

Yet touched at strains of "auld lang syne;" 
I can't forbear some simple line 
Dictated by this Muse o' mine, 

What e'er bef a' ; 
So wi' the Poet's mystic sign 

I greet them a' 





164 



FLITTING FANCIES. 
A desultory, discourse on diverse subjects, continued. 

I often wonder, sometimes fret 
At bounds that seem eternal set 
To keep us under. 
Why should yon man of little soul 
The best things of the earth control? 
I often wonder. 



Give me the man whose soul aspires 
To better things; who sometimes fires 
With righteous indignation. 
It does me good to note the grace 
That beams about his honest face 
Amid contamination. 



The world is wide, but not all free 
As you may very plainly see 
By observation. 
Only 'neath the flag of stars 
Only 'neath St. George's bars 
Is Freedom's station. 



165 



FLITTING FANCIES. 

Here to-day, to-morrow gone! 

How vain then 'tis to sit forlorn 

And trouble borrow. 

Joy while you may, too soon may come 

The admonition — drear and dumb 

"Worm's meat to-morrow." 




The secret of "poetic pains" 

The dictionary's lore contains, 

And here's the test; 

The words are there to pick and choose, 

Take simply those you want to use 

And leave the rest. 



So get Friend Webster's dictionary, 

A quire or so of stationery, 

And ere you have begun 

Your Muse will come down from the skies, 

And very soon to your surprise, 

You'll find your poem done. 



Misfortune lurking in the gloom, 
Awaits our coming sure as doom; 
In vain we turn to flee; 
We cannot pass nor yet return 
Until the price we sadly learn 
And pay Misfortune's fee. 



166 

FLITTING FANCIES. 

A little further on we find 

A watcher of a similar kind 

Indeed a close relation. 

He stands and bars our further way, 

Nor may we pass until we pay 

Some toll to Tribulation. 



Then picking up our heavy load, 

With saddened hearts we take our road 

And tread indeed despairing; 

Until there at the parting ways 

Good Fortune stands, before our gaze 

A smile of welcome wearing. 



Great sisters of the western world! 
With banners to the winds unfurled; 
In modern progress dressed. 
Ye have not met the Spoiler dire! 
Not all have been tried in the fire 
And stood its searching test. 



The Earthquake's devastating path; 

The stress of War, the Storm-king's wrath, 

Tried one of you in vain! 

Serenely set by summer seas, 

With ensign still flung to the breeze, 

Lo! Charleston! free of stain. 



167 

FLITTING FANCIES. 

Above the blows of careless Chance, 
Surmounting unkind Circumstance, 
Steming their endeavor; 
Superior to the fiat of Fate; 
Reposeful in her fair estate, 
May she live forever. 



The wealth of bliss in lover's kiss, 
Makes beggars all of those who miss 
That inspiration. 
It holds a charm quite all its own 
Of which no counterfeit is known, 
No imitation. 



How pleasing 'tis to sometimes feel 
That in this world of woe and weal 
Some few may understand us. 
If 'twere not so we could not know, 
Nor yet discern a friend from foe 
Nor where their ire might land us. 



This gentle beast so full of love 

They say no portion has above! 

I understand it not. 

Though sanctioned not by priest or pope 

I hold it is no wanton Lope 

That it may share my lot. 



168 



FLITTING FANCIES. 



Yon toiling, weary, meek eyed brute, 
May mask some human soul held mute 
By heavenly dispensation. 
Some idle wench, some lady fair 
Some erstwhile haughty millionaire 
In stern and hard probation. 




Disdainful of my humble verse 

I see my critic cold and terse, 

Pick flaws and slips. 

But of all tasks — I do surmize 

The easiest is to criticise, 

By pen or lips. 



And envy is a thing that's prone 
To seek for faults and faults alone, 
All else ignoring. 
To see the good, the fair intent, 
The soul that is to kindness bent 
Needs no imploring. 



Nay! Tell me not my knowing friend, 
That poets number to the end 
Their days in destitution? 
The offerings of the heart, the mind, 
Though scattered far to every wind 
Will find some restitution. 





169 




Much indeed my soul doth yearn 

To gather knowledge, and to learn 

At wisdom's invitation. 

Oh, that I might from want be free! 

To rise above obscurity; 

What happy consummation. 



The rabble's praise is easy won, 

A ribald jest, a stupid pun 

Will gain their acclamation. 

Whate'er the work my pen has wrought, 

It brings content to know I sought 

The better approbation. 



Oh, Man! beneath thy baneful sway, 

All blessings have been turned 

To curses ; while on nature's face 

Thy hellish brands are burned. 

Oh grotesque Brute! dare thou to tell 

Self flattering — that there is no hell? 




170 



Vain of what thou should'st deplore, 
Puffed up in thy petty pride, 
Content on a barren shore 
When Heaven's gates are open wide. 
Oh, Man, without the saving grace 
Thou art a sore on Nature's face. 



In wanton sport, for fashion's freak 
Thy cruel gun makes deadly sting; 
A song bird decked in plumage rare 
Falls a mangled, quivering thing. 
But Death himself hath tipped his dart 
With bitter poison for thy heart. 



But coward Man ! You never can 
The larger of God's creatures face, 
Unless with murderous weapons armed 
In some secure and ambushed place. 
Thy vaunted courage to a gasp 
Doth turn, within the Leopard's grasp. 



The best use which thy hellish bolts 
Are ever made to work 
Is when they're turned against thy kind; 
Tis then thou should'st not shirk 
To slay and maim with all thy might 
For earth breathes easier at the sight. 



171 



Pathetic, famished creatures toil 
Beneath thy cruel curse and blow, 
That thou may'st reap ungodly spoil; 
Their groans fill all the earth below. 
But even now God's bolt is sped 
That shall break on thy cursed head. 



The swiftest flight thy engines make 
The eagle's wing doth flout it, 
And all thy bluster and thy brag 
He moves serene without it. 
And dwells aloft in solitude, 
Above thee and thy bragging brood. 



On carcasses of lesser beasts 

Thou gorgest, 'till thou art revealed 

In fury of thy naked lust 

A hideous monster, unconcealed. 

A realm of brutes this earthly ball, 

But thou art greatest brute of all. 



Wealth from slaughter, wealth from spoil, 
Wooing gain that brings a curse; 
Wrung from wretched slaves of toil, 
And Business! masks thy deed perverse. 
Oh, Business! "name that's known well 
In the dark lexicon of Hell." 



172 



To stem thy sin and lustful thirst,- 
And swerve thee from thy quick return 
To Hell, from whence thou came at first, 
The Lord hath set some lights to burn. 
Masked in thy shape some angels dwell 
The only bar 'twixt thee and Hell. 

And though some heed, the many spurn 
The patient few, who stand within 
His grace, and keep His lamps to burn 
Against the blasts of vice and sin. 
The patient few who constant grieve 
For thou, Hell's dreadful gift to Eve. 



TO A SYMPATHETIC STRANGER. 

Being an answer to a condolence in verse. 

What more could touch a poet's heart, 
Or quicker make the tear drops start 
Than sympathy by Muse's art 

Expressed in verse? 
E'en though their burden bears a smart 

As I rehearse. 

Your sentiment of "Love's Bouquet" 
Will touch my heart for many a day, 
No matter where I bide or stray; 

'Twill be impressed 
The bud the angels bore away 

We loved the best. 



173 

TO A SYMPATHETIC STRANGER. 

And so, my gentle unknown friend, 
I feel the healing balm you lend, 
And would some pleasant hour spend 

To listen to thy creed. 
Until that time, these lines I send 

To thank you well indeed. 



The sea of turmoil, tide of tears, 
Breaks madly o'er our hopes and fears 
Sad, sad the mystery appears, 

For light we crave, 
But little comes; and little cheers 

O'er some loved grave. 



Yet do we cherish in our souls, 

Despite of tribulation's tolls, 

That life is but the tide which rolls 

On some serene To-morrow; 
The tide which God-directed rolls, 

On some divinelier 'morrow. 



God bless you friend who blessed my child, 
May life for you be sweet and mild; 
And may my darling undefiled 

Meet us upon that shore, 
Beyond life's ocean rough and wild, 

Where pilgrims part no more. 



174 



SEASIDE REPARTEE. 

And the Land looked down on the ocean 
And said "It is plain to me 
That you're simply a wide depression 
Of myself, and they call you the Sea. 
So in vain is your bluster and blowing 
And your pounding upon my strand, 
For no matter how deep 
Your tides may sweep 
They rest at last upon layid. 



And the Sea smiled up at his brother 

With the smile of the one who knows best, 

And he said "Though I'm a depression, 

Such jokes make me most depressed. 

And 'tis only a slight elevation 

Keeps part of you out of my flood, 

Were it not for that 

I think it is pat 

That your name at its best — would be "Mud." 

Cape Henry, Va. 



175 



(§, ffl\XB? ! B\xtnt &Uvv\i (&ohbe bb. 



In behalf of all genius that has suffered from the flings of fools. 




M 



OTTO WHOM D O 1 E OWE t~J \ OVR- SWICE. 3 « 



g HONOVROTCLL ME I EF^^HIS VERE^THF: LEAFOR THE FLOWER^ 



Now! hallowed Muse! from starry realms descend, 

Some little time to baser needs attend; 

Lay by devotion, and love's fire put out, 

Abate decorum, — for a rabble's rout! 

Now Indignation urge thy gentle will 

And prompt a passion that no prayer may still! 

With flaming sword of wrath from Jovian skies 
Turn its white heat against deceit and lies; 
Unmask presumption, and let play the blade 
That parts false critics from their cut-throat trade. 
Search out the envious and let play the fire 
That sears the hypocrite and brands the liar. 
Sear! scorch and wither! all the godless crew 
that bring pollution to the shrine of you! 

Now ply the whip of rhyme to satire's song 

With measured lashes where they well belong! 

Lay bare the bigot, and flog well the fool, 

And set the dunce upon a giant stool; 

For raging rampant, unrebuked and rash 

They shall not go, whilst thou hast power to lash! 



176 

When genius rears his halo'd brow of light, 
Fools stand confused and marvel at the sight; 
Abashed and dazzled gaze the stupid band, 
And mock at what they cannot understand. 
Too dumb indeed to read the signs aright, 
Their wonder turns at last to envious spite. 
Some drowsy dullard drags from desuetude 
His froth-flecked censure and its slander'us brood; 
A snake at heart — but goose in head — this thing 
That hisses loud, yet lacks the serpent's sting. 

And those who should the poet's lines respect 

"Damn by faint praise" or murder by neglect. 

Or perhaps they smile with studious derision 

And rob poor Merit of a just decision. 

A "gentleman," — so-called — put to the test 

Is often found a common scamp at best. 

And none more gleefully befoul their betters 

Than these same scamps within the realm of letters. 

The ready weapon that the jealous wield 
Is ridicule, to them both sword and shield. 
The fretted blockhead, the embittered fool 
Are quick to slip the shafts of ridicule, 
And think because it kills the carrion crow 
'Twill reach and lay the lordly eagle low! 

From colleges the gilded youth come forth 

To ape dame Wisdom and at Merit scoff. 

Some upstart, in a condescending mood 

Informs us that "the lines are fairly good." 

Another to whom poetry reads like Greek 

Advises that "this author lacks technique," 

And overlooks a passage half sublime 

Because — forsooth — "it don't exactly rhyme." 

But even you — exacting Mr. Sass 

Could not complain if rhymed your name with — Ass. 

The sombre road that leads to fame is lined 
With vicious footpads of assorted kind, 
And he that sheds a light amid the dark 
For murd'rous miscreants makes a shining mark. 
The angel's, infant's, or the fool's poor state 
Alone inspire no censure or no hate, 
But let some earthly genius be thy share 
Then vampires pester, and the spoilers tear! 
Then envy racks the canker-eaten heart 
And bends the bow that bears a baneful dart. 
Vainglorious triflers — who ne'er wrote a line 
Some passing glory for themselves design 



177 



By smearing slime with petty jealous rage 
Upon the whiteness of the poet's page. 
Tiny philosophers! hair-splitting scribes! 
Mighty midgets! of a score of tribes! 
That line the plain as far as eye can see 
— The dull dead plain of mediocrity — 
A pot upon you all! my compliments! 
Not you indeed shall judge my competence. 
Let "envy gnaw your rotten souls," I say, 
"And discontent deAOur" your dirty clay! 

Allien turned the edge of their ill-tempered tools, 
The last retort of brainless, envious fools 
Is "Plagiarism!" charge so vague and wide 
That to refute it needs an angel guide. 
The cry that pestered Byron, Moore and Pope, 
And made sweet Burns almost abandon hope; 
Not new today, as 'tis, 'twas ever so 
From Dryden downward to our native Poe. 

When fancies crowd the poet's raptured ken, 
And pour in passion from his facile pen, 
Small wonder if stray mem'ries should intrude 
To mingle with his own beloved brood. 
For memory still will leave her fine imprint 
Upon fresh coinage from our mind's own mint; 
And if we use some half forgotten lay 
To faulty memory is our pen a prey. 
This is my plea, indeed no less nor more; 
The same's been done by better men before. 

And Pope from Dryden borrowed not in vain; 

That Byron read them both, and well, is plain. 

And Dryden warmed beside his Milton's fire; 

In Burns we see the heat of Pope's satire. 

And great De Quincey's rich and wondrous flow 

Made plain the path for Edgar Allen Poe. 

All tapped the fountain of great Shakespeare's mind 

And by its waters all their work refined. 

And if some wisdom from such springs I drew, 

Of this be sure — I'd never draw from you! 

Perhaps even here you'll note a borrowed lay — 

I've read both Byron's Bards, and Pope's Essay! 

Who cries "Thief loudest after plundered pelf, 
Is of times he who is the thief himself; 
Give me his writings — and my mark is missed 
If on his brow I don't burn "Plagiarist!" 



178 

Each book and writer that appears on earth 

Makes for successors still a greater dearth; 

But must we then abide restraining bars 

Until new tongues are drawn from distant stars? 

And must we keep the silence of the dead 

Because the thoughts that come have once been said? 

If ancient poets found no pastures tilled, 

No bending book-shelves with fine volumes filled, 

These things, methinks, were of small worth beside 

Their wild fresh forests, all to me denied! 

No wild profusion or rich wilderness 

Where I may cull to deck my Muse's dress; 

Small wonder then if I should take a spray 

To fill the beauty of mine own bouquet; 

They well can spare it, and I make this plea — 

That if I've robbed them? think — how they've robbed me! 

So to the end I urge my willing pen 

And better judgment wait from better men. 

And with this logic running through my head 

I'd restless turn upon a tiresome bed 

Till short-chime hours of blackened night addressed 

The new-born day, and brought belated rest. 

At last resolved to sing my simple song 

In my own way, to cheer the world along. 

Across the hills the phantom light appears 

And young Presumption treads where Caution fears. 

O Muse! sweet starry goddess! why hast thou 

Shed thy alluring light upon my brow? 

Why hast thou shown to my imprisoned soul 

The gleaming portals of the poet's goal? 

Why hast thou fired me with thy heavenly rage 

And robbed me of my worldly heritage? 

Why hast thou left me parched, with empty hands 

To seek for fountains 'mid the desert sands? 

Why arc thy children weighted down with woe 

And doomed a solitary way below? 

Thou Sister of Affliction, Grief and Pain — 

Why leaA-e us naked to the pelting rain 

Of poverty? and spread before our eyes 

The rich abundance which fell fate denies? 

Why lead us to the verge of Fame's estate 

And on the panting pilgrim shut the gate? 

Yet, perhaps, in this a recompense is found; — 

We leave our footprints in the firmer ground, 

That they who follow may our journey trace 

Through realms enchanted — to God's holy place! 



1/9 



Few souls so simple, and few heads so hard 
But find some pleasure in a pleasing bard. 
Blest by all ages, sanctified in song 
The singer who would cheer the world along; 

But now my breaks upon the stage 

With brutal bias and green-livered rage 

To judge my volume by its poorest page! 

In my fair fabric finds some borrowed strands 

Ignoring all mine own — of goodly brands. 

A-seeking weeds within my garden fair 

He brute-like tramples all the flowers there! 

The tribe of Jeffries never disappears, 

A Byron comes once in two hundred years! 

Last, but not least — the small fry of the press — 

Of all confusion here's the meanest mess! 

Those daily sheets and monthly magazines 

That measure merit with their scanty means; 

Those petty sheets that dare to scorn or praise, 

Make thousand errors in a hundred days. 

"Who scarce can let a single fortnight pass 

Without one write itself a sorry ass. 

Who note some marsh-light with a child's surprise 

And fail to see a stellar glory rise. 

A "Xeuvo Persei" lights the mid -night sky, 

One of a thousand turns its face on high! 

to the end of tune 

The champion idiot of this western clime! 

And , prosy — — , dull and blind, 

A second place for you is clear designed. 

Here's to you both! long may you jeer and gibe, 

The hay-crowned monarchs of your driveling tribe! 

And so, I'll vex me not, but keep my path 

'Twixt Heaven's portals, and Hell's vicious wrath, 

And at the flings of fools I'll ever laugh. 

And if I wooed and won a willing Muse 

It matters not these fools the bans refuse. 

Availeth naught that miscreants seek to sever, 

I'll live beneath her gentle smile forever. 

She touched my soul and laid my poor heart bare 

And tapped sweet springs the Lord had planted there. 

To please myself I did her lore rehearse, 

To please my friends I wrote my book of verse. 

Xo shade shall dim the love-light of her eye, 

Xo paltry pimp shall part my love and I. 

For this dear reader I have made my fight 
And trust that you will judge my reason right. 



180 

DOMINUS VOBISCUM. 

Pilgrims of morning, pilgrims of night, 
Under the stars and the sun; 
Chasing vain phantoms or seeking the light, 
Soon, soon may thy journey be done. 
Seek Him like the seers who followed the star, 
Dominus Vobiscum! 
Au revoir. 



"God be with you 'till we meet again," 
Yea, even though 'tween us may fall 
The silence deep. No brand of Cain 
Be ours to proffer at His call. 
Not ours the cause of truth to mar, 
Dominus Vobiscum! 
Au revoir. 



Coming and going, so strangely we meet, 
To act and re-act on our kind; 
On desolate highway or populous street, 
Restless we pass, like the wind. 
To you! fellow pilgrim, near or afar, 
Dominus Vobiscum! 
Au revoir. 




181 
EASTER. 

Easter, the supreme and triumphant festival of Christianity, is 
with us once again. Every follower of the faith worthy of the name 
should find his or her place in some sanctuary of worship on the com- 
ing Sunday. The Christian should attend church on this day if on no 
other, not for the vain display of finery, hut to do solemn reverence to 
the mightiest festival of his holy creed. It is meet and proper that 
this day should be observed as it is with the most stately and elaborate 
ceremonial, and it is indeed fitting that our hearts should give grati- 
fied praise to the divine Christ whose triumph over death gave hope 
unto the world and all the people thereof. 

"Science may cavil, learning make it plain 
That all the sacred promises are in vain." 

But science itself halts before the mystery of being, and withers miser- 
ably in the face of death. To a certain extent science leads away from 
religion, but that same science pursued sufficiently far leads to the 
brink of a gulf whose name is Chaos, beyond which dimly the weary 
and baffled wanderer may discern the Promised Land, but which to 
reach he must retrace his steps and take the path that Faith directed 
from the beginning. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life," said the Saviour of man- 
kind, and in that single sentence lies the sum total of man's hope and 
belief in the life to come. Blot them out from the faith and the 
hearts of humanity, and the brute beasts of the field, and the fowls 
of the air are indeed better than man, because happier. But in this 
divine assurance the Christian rests content that when the long, cold 
night of death be past, the sun of an eternal day will break in splendor 
on his raptured soul. The materialism of the age may scoff, immature 
science may deride the thought of life after death, but wise old nature 
gives the lie to all their learnedness when from the graveyard of the 
winter's desolation she renews the garments to drape the ancient world 
in the living green of spring. 

It is not, indeed, so strange a thing that we may rise from the 
dead and live again. 

"Shall man alone, for whom all else revives, 
No resurrection know? Shall man alone, 
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground, 
Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds?" 

The poet's question is her own best answer. The wonder of the resur- 
rection, that miracle of the crucified Christ, is no greater than the mira- 
cle of our present existence. Our present life is or should be, the eternal 
wonder of the thinking soul, and its proper contemplation may lead 
us the easier to find the perfect faith that is itself superior to death. 

Casting aside entirely the divine revelation and bringing the naked 
world to the cold test of science, and yet its votaries dare not say that 



182 

the resurrection of the body is a material impossibility, for the very 
operations of chance and hazard, unbridled and undirected, may be 
brought in testimony against them. The physical body of man is com- 
posed of the different elements of the material world that encompasses 
him. In his construction the different elements, atoms, molecules, are 
gathered and held together. In one form they make the beast, in 
another the tree, and in still another the man. The endless operations 
of physical matter eternally repeated throughout infinite space, may 
so operate to bring together — either near or at some period immensely 
remote — the same elements under the same conditions that now con- 
spire to make the writer, and thereby repeat the process by which he 
now lives and has being, to the end that he would live again the same 
identical personality. Of course, this is the very frenzy and climax of 
speculation, but given an endless succession of eternal causes, and we 
say that nature itself might, without the intercession of Divinity, re- 
peat her own processes and bring to pass the miracle of her own resur- 
rection. But this is not our creed, for Christ has said "I am the 
Resurrection and the Life," and on these words the Christian goes to 
his grave with an unfaltering faith, that even as the spring arrays her- 
self in the beautiful flowers off the dead leaves of the last winter, so 
shall his own death prove but the winter to another and a fairer life, 
where his immortal soul shall stand robed in the garments of incor- 
ruption before the throne of One who speaks: — 

"Behold, Beloved! That which was promised ye has come to pass." 



PADEREWSKI. 



The performance at the Academy of Music last night was one 
to be long remembered by those who heard and understood it. It was 
an achievement to which mere praise adds nothing, and for which 
critical analysis is to the world -scattered few capable of that task. 

Somewhere, somebody has said, that one man of talent is worth 
ten men of cleverness, and one man of genius a thousand of talent. 
Nothing could better substantiate the assertion than to mentally con- 
trast the many concerts we have heard with the renditions of the 
great Paderewski. Paderewski is a genius, and PadereAvski is worth 
a whole generation of talent. With him in sight mere cleverness is 
resolved into a remote nothingness. 

It might almost be asserted that genius is necessary to appreciate 
the masterly interpretations of this marvelous pianist, but we may 
compromise by affirming that at least nothing short of talent is capable 
of such appreciation. An appreciative understanding would be that in 
which the mechanical difficulties of piano manipulation are realized 
from experience, added to musical intuition sufficient to recognize 
the great harmonic soul of the interpreter. Fortunately for the artist, 
be he musician, poet, painter or sculptor, the quality of genius, latent, 
quiescent and receptive, is somewhat widely diffused, forming a nega- 
tive pole of human endeavor, and making possible the enthusiasm 



1SS 

with which the creations of the positive genius are received; and, for 
the reason that music finds a way to the soul where other art cannot, 
and that the act of listening entails no labor of mind upon the lis- 
tener, the musician has the decided advantage of his fellow artists, 
and rarely fails of the appreciation his talent may merit. 

The writer has never before been privileged to imbibe such a soul- 
feast as that of last night, a few hours of which are better than years 
of the commonplace, and the like of which becomes a delightful mem- 
ory forever. The occasion was altogether fascinating and happy. The 
brilliant interior of the nobby little theatre, the notable and fashion- 
able audience that filled it completely, the half-subdued flutter of an- 
ticipation combined with that indefinable sense of pleasureable expec- 
tation, all struck the attention with a freshness and novelty for the 
reason that being an infrequent visitor at the theatre, the writer was 
not surfeited with such scenes. The few minutes prior to the appear- 
ance of the great performer were passed in the contemplation of this 
pleasant and lively picture, varied occasionally with a nod to a friend 
here, and a kindly salutation from an acquaintance there, the whole 
tending to inspire a gratifying ease and rest of mind in which forget- 
fulness of the worries of the day, and the cares of the morrow, was 
happily involved. 

A large concourse of people, particularly a pleasure crowd gath- 
ered within walls, has a tendency to lead some minds into a train of 
meditative reflection, and not infrequently it is that Melancholy chooses 
such a setting in which to frame her fancy and emphasize the vanity 
of the world, dimming for the time with her shadow all earthly pomp, 
and saddening life's gayest moments. So, as the eye ranged over that 
fashionable and joyous assemblage, contemplating the manifold moods 
of its many units, its various degrees of wealth, position and display, 
listening to the incessant monotone of its genteel conversation and 
guarded laughter, the thought persistently intruded despite all efforts 
to banish it, that every individual composing that great company now 
so full of life and animation, must each in turn drop silently and 
lonely from his or her accustomed place, until at last, of them all, 
not one shall be left on this side of the black curtain of death; but yet, 
beyond that even the spirit's eye could probe and see — perhaps occu- 
pying their very places, — another such audience, another such occa- 
sion, and mayhap — another Paderewski; illustrating the power of a 
single attribute of the mind to conquer death. But this melancholy 
reverie was suddenly dispelled by an outburst of thunderous applause 
that greeted a slender, complacent gentleman, who at the first care- 
less glance looked anything but the wonder he was. 

The performance opened with the somewhat unpretentious Bach- 
Liszt Fugue in A minor, a key well calculated to tune the audience to 
the pitch of the evening. The very first touch upon the instrument, 
the series of runs, and the delicate interweaAing and resolving of the 
massed chords set at rest any doubt of the quality of the man before 
the ivories; no hint of hesitation there, only masterful assurance. So 
effortless appeared the velocity of that magic touch that it seemed at 
times as if the notes sprang up in anticipation. The hands ranged the 



184 

key-board as if guided by some invisible straight-edge. The skill, the 
capacity, the forte, the cunning of those fingers; the deft manipula- 
tion, the facility and the absolute control, might all be expressed in 
the one word — perfection, and with this assurance one settled down 
in rapt expectancy. 

In Beethoven's Sonata 57, both performer and audience were 
thoroughly warmed up to the theme. In this delightful rendition im- 
pressions were showered in a series of exquisite modulatons compris- 
ing a blending of moods and fancies superbly executed. It was a 
sweet, confidential thing, a heart to heart talk between the artist and 
his audience; "a discourse most eloquent," in which the plaintive 
and appealing note dominated throughout. There were passages it 
would be powerless to translate, now light with the abandonment of 
happiness unrestrained, now sweetly sad "like snow-drops set to 
music, then melting into tears." It finished with a delicious blending 
of massed chords that left the ear aching for its very sweetness. The 
rendition of the marvelous Schubert-Liszt number led to the contem- 
plation of things holy; as it advanced, expectancy stood speechless 
before the promise of some heavenly revelation; the deeper harmonies 
of the soul were set astir and one involuntarily breathed thanks for 
the boon of hearing. The very instrument seemed a piece vibrating 
in unison with some saintly symphony. 

It was such music as may serve the Lord to call His children 
home leaving that last smile upon the placid face. There were rhap- 
sodies that reached to the doors of Paradise pleading pardon for a 
sinful world; symphonies that were swallowed in their own complete 
sweetness; the pathos of exiles returning to native land, the naivete of 
childhood, the hope of youth and the melancholy of age; and now, a 
passage so ravishing that one felt like crying out — "I know, — I know!" 
A glance about the auditorium at this moment revealed the passionate 
admiration with which this passage was received, hearts were being 
led to the altar of memories, the wells of pity and sympathy were 
stirred and tears came to the eyes of even the worldly-wise; and as it 
ended, those who had understood were conscious that for once they 
had touched the confines of the realm of better things. 

Following this, the several numbers from Chopin were given 
with a rich plentitude of power.. They comprised a very festival of 
fancy. At one moment the measured march of majestic armies, at 
the next the airy dances of joyous nymphs in sylvan glades. Now 
limped and luminous like the voice of babbling brooks through daisied 
fields, now like the turbulent swell of tempest-driven waves that beat 
on storm-tormented cliffs. Now the dignified measures of colonial 
dances, now rushing with amazing velocity into some delirious bizarre 
thing that prompted to madness. Strains that soothed the heart, fol- 
lowed by little bursts that quickened the pulse with their syncopated 
Orientalism, ending with a clash of discords resolved on the instant 
to a mighty harmony of heart-lingering volume. 

The next number was a wonderful portrayal of passionate power 
in overwhelming action. Opening almost with a climax it was difficult 
to discern how a fit ending could be eAolved; yet this was accomplished. 



183 

From the complicated perplexities of the beginning the accelerated 
momentum and mounting emphasis of the theme carried into the midst 
of tumult and a chaotic whirlwind of unbridled impulse, comprehend- 
ing a supreme tragedy resolving at last into the complete triumph of 
good. There was conflict of forces titanic; heights impregnable under 
the attack of powers that knew no fear; engagements dire and dis- 
astrous in which defeat was met with renewed determination doubly 
determined! Now the red tide of Carnage rose to its flood; Havoc 
shrieked courage in the ears of Heroism; some great, some awful 
crisis was nearing; and then, just as Catastrophe was rushing to in- 
volve all things and Suspense could no longer bear her dreadful bur- 
den — a great deliverance — and Peace. 

The scene shifted as by magic to a day of beauty in the Golden 
Age; nature was rejoicing at her own very lovliness; Compassion was 
over all things and there was no sin, no sorrow, and no suffering. 
The azure canopy of Heaven was pierced by peaks of mighty moun- 
tains up the vernal sides of which Joy led the way to a prospect before 
which Imagination stood entranced. From off the confines of an 
Edenic land the illimitable ocean stretched its sun-kissed billows, 
from which rolled upward to the ravished ear the soul-subduing 
symphony of the seas. And over all was spread the seal of Peace, 
and Hope, and larger Liberty! 

With that last chord, one saw as in a dream the vision of a bowing, 
smiling, totally different being from the one who had so unobtrusively 
entered a couple of hours back. One felt like rushing to the stage 
to fall in gratitude and thanks before him. What majestic propor- 
tions he had now reached — from what a towering height he smiled 
down vipon us! But even as the mind framed these thoughts, Pad- 
erewski turned and walked briskly from the stage, and with his disap- 
pearance came once more the cold reality of things. The confused 
tumult of disorderly movement struck jarringly upon the ear; the 
audience was rising from the seats, and the lights Avere dancing and 
people were pushing to get past and all were hurrying to get home, 
and suddenly I remembered that I should do the same, whereupon, 
with an acute sense of insignificance, I quit the scene of the night's 
enchantment. 

Norfolk, Va., Jan. 28th, 1905. 





186 

ROBERT BURNS. 

According to astrology, those born nncler the signs prevailing dur- 
ing the month of January, are destined — if favored in certain other 
respects — to shine as stars of the first magnitude in the brilliant galaxy 
of those whom the world deems great. 

Setting aside the pretensions of this so-called science as the myth 
and fable of a credulous age, we are nevertheless frequently astonished 
to observe its edicts in harmony with the biographies of the celebrities 
of the world. The list of great men born in January is a long one, and 
includes the names of the most commanding figures in every depart- 
ment of human endeavor. Among those who occur at the moment 
might be mentioned Edmund Burke, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Edgar A. Poe, 
Lord Byron and Robert Burns, Scotia's rarest flower. 

Robert Burns, a figure pathetically unique in literature, was born 
January 25th, 1759, and the world was to him — in his own language — 
"a bitter step-mother and hard." How such an amazingly tuneful 
and beautiful intellect could have arisen from the discordant and 
narrow environment in which it did, is ahnost as great a mystery as 
the production of Christ by the Jewish people of His period; and as 
if to carry out the parallel, like Him he was crucified. The man who 
will delight the world so long as wit and humor abide upon it, was 
compelled to waste his heaven-born talents among the clumsy peasants 
and in the low taverns of his birth-place. The most pitiful picture 
in all this vale of sadness is the figure of genius seeking a friend and 
finding but the fool in his mockery. Hence here the bird of the loftier 
regions held captive among the noisy fowl of the ground; the eagle 
of the airy solitudes confined to narrow fields, where the crow was the 
better bird; the graceful antlered hart of the forest harnessed beside 
the pack-horse; indeed, a veritable "Pegasus at the plow!" 

Not that there Mere people lacking to recognize the rare genius 
so suddenly set among them, but literary mediocrity is ever intolerant 
and hates above all things a demonstration of superiority, the more 
especially when class distinction is involved. Not alone was Burns 
treated with contempt, but he was literally persecuted. Arraigned on 
the double charge of superiority and humble station, found guilty on 
both counts, Burns was condemned to isolation, contumely and neglect. 
Of course, it aroused the indignation of his outraged heart, and in the 
artlessness of his nature he let it be known. In the open, Burns' de- 
tractors were put to speedy and inglorious rout, and the keenness of 
his satire, and the rare, blunt, honest democracy of the man set preju- 
dice and envy afire, to the end that the brightest jewel in Scotland's 
crown of genius was steeped in the mire of faint praise, pitiful patron- 
age, and even idiotic derision. Amid the tumult and the conflict — sub- 
dued but tremendous — his muse shown out with the clear and stad- 
fast gaze that withered affectation, and scorched the hypocrite to his 
marrow, and his satire has conferred an inglorious immortality upon 
some of the fools who mocked him from behind their bulwarks of 
worldly position. His adverse critics invariably lacked the potent 
quality of imagination, and there is no common ground of understand- 
ing, — no honorable warfare and no truce therein, — between the en- 



187 
dowed and those who have neither the eye to see nor the heart to feel. 

"For me, before a monarch's face, 
E'en there I will not natter." 

Said the poet; and 

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gold for all that." 

And thus it was that the only people who could have fostered this 
exquisite flower of Parnassus, — the lords and other nobility, — left it 
to wither and perish among the weeds of squalor and the blasts of 
poverty. Perhaps the greatest affliction of genius is its combination 
of modesty and self-consciousness. Lake Shakespeare, Burns must have 
felt that his works could never die. He must have foreseen, as to-day, 
his countrymen in all parts of the world uniting to celebrate his mem- 
ory, the while he was wasting his life in the drudgery of the farm or 
the collection of liquor taxes. This was the best that Britain could 
do in life for him, whose memory they would not now exchange for a 
material empire. Well might poor Burns exclaim with overpowering 
emotion, 

"Curse on ungrateful man that can be pleased 
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure." 

But well he knew that he had committed the one unpardonable crime — 
the crime of cleverness. Mediocrity makes no enemies, but on the 
heels of genius the hounds of hate are ever yelping. From the van- 
tage ground of wealth and position, Burns, like Byron, might have 
beaten down the prejudice of the so-called "cultured," and walked to 
fame and fortune over the carcasses of his foes; but he was poor, 
and the bit of poverty is a galling burden when necessity is driver. 

It is said that the gross earnings of Burns' pen amounted to less 
than five thousand dollars; he should have lived in these days and 
written a worthless novel. For a hundred years and more the coinage 
of Burns' muse has been tested on the great heart of humanity, and the 
ring is ever true; above gold and precious stones in that it appreciates 
with time and circulation. 

The lovers of the beautiful shudder at the narrow margin of 
chance by which this treasure of song and beauty has come down to 
us. Had it not been for the providential discernment of one or two 
appreciative friends, the world would undoubtedly have been the 
poorer for the lack of Robert Burns. 

The beauties of Burns may be found on almost every page. What 
strikes the reader with wonder is the suddenness, the flashing bril- 
liancy of his genius, all unstudied and unpremeditated. In the midst 
of the commonplace he gives us a lightning stroke from heaven, leaving 
the beholder blinded with admiration. In Tarn O'Shanter, a pure dia- 
lect descriptive poem, he swerves in the most natural way into that 
most exquisite piece of purest English — 



188 

"But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is dead!" 

Again, in describing the hour of midnight, who but Burns could have 
said 

"That hour o' night's black arch the key-stane." 

An analysis of the line reveals its complete and beautiful fittingness; 
the vault of heaven is an arch, the night side is a "black arch," the 
midnight hour is the middle or key-stone of the arch, the apex which 
fits the day together and binds the whole. 

Those who do not read Burns are negligent of their higher pleas- 
ure, and those who do not understand him are unfortunate. To the 
writer's mind he is the most natural poet that the world has yet seen. 
Nature, that at intervals appears to weary of her own sameness, chose 
this child of Scotland to vary the monotony and give expression to her 
rarest and sweetest song, revealing to mankind the sublime simplicity 
of her inner self. With rare cunning she fashioned this heart, to her 
own music set it a-beating, and left its possessor to the Muses and the 
Fates. Here at least the quality of genius is not strained. It may not 
be the Amazonian flood of Shakespeare carrying all before it; the 
Nilitic torrent of Byron with its cataracts, its pools and its inunda- 
tions; or the deep-sea serenity of a Milton brooding in calm under its 
heaving surface. Rather it is the mountain stream that smiles at every 
flower along its vernal course, ripples into song at every obstruction, 
and finds the sea at last through the forests and fields of the level 
lands; not the less alluring and soul-satisfying to those who love 
nature in her every mood. 

Unlike the Shakesperian muse that ranged triumphant through 
every prospect, from the pulsating splendors under tropic suns to the 
serene white silences of Arctic nights, the muse of Burns strayed sel- 
dom from her unpretentious environment; but she consecrated the 
commonplace and played on all the passions. Love knows no truer 
interpreter. Of all the gems of love the following lines — adapted from 
the dialect — constitute perhaps the most beautiful: 

OH, WERT THOU IN THE COLD BLAST. 



Oh, wert thou in the winter wind 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My cloak against its angry blast 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee. 
Or did misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee fall, around thee fall, 
Thy shelter should my bosom be 

To share it all, to share it all. 



189 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

So bleak and bare, so bleak and bare, 
That desert were a Paradise 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
Or were I Monarch of the Globe 

With thee to reign, with thee to reign, 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Would be my Queen, would be my Queen. 

It will be observed that the word love does not appear in the 
poem, no trace is there of maudlin sentiment or bathos, but the power, 
the potency and the pathos make of it love's very apotheosis. 

In the verses "Scots, wha hae wi' AVallace bled," patriotism has 
in turn received its crowning recognition, — 

"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or victory! 



"Wha will be a traitor-knave? 
Wha can All a coward's grave? 
Wha sae base as be a slave? 
Let him turn and flee!" 

There is no simpler, no more powerful appeal than this in any lan- 
guage. 

If, as has been claimed, Burns had a grosser side, developed be- 
yond the average of humanity, that side is not revealed in his poetry, 
and very true it is that it is kinder to judge a man by his work than 
to judge the work by the man, and it is rather a significant fact that 
his character was not attacked until after his affluent genius and emi- 
nence was acknowledged. 

When Burns' first work began to appear in various forms in his 
home county they came under the notice of the great professors and 
editors of Edinborough, who immediately took umbrage that a peasant 
plow-boy should dare to poach on the sacred preserves of literature, 
a domain they considered peculiarly their own. "How," they ex- 
claimed, "could an unlettered farmer's son, unlearned in English, to 
say nothing of Latin and Greek, write poetry?" 

Burns' reply was direct and overwhelming, — 

"You critic-folk may cock your nose, 
And say, "How can I e'er propose 
While hardly knowing verse from prose, 

To make a song?" 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes, 

You may be wrong! 



190 

"Ye set o' dull, conceited hashes, 
Confuse your brains in college classes, 
Ye go in stirks and come out asses, 

Plain truth to speak; 
And then ye think to climb Parnassus 

By dint o' Greek? 

"What's a' the learning o' your schools, 

Your Latin names for horns and stools, 

If Mother Nature made ye fools — 

What worth your grammars? 

Ye'd better ha'e ta'en up labor's tools 

Or knappin hammers. 

"Gie me a spark o' nature's fire 
That's a' the learning I desire, 
And if I toil through dub or mire 

At plow or cart; 
My muse, though homely in attire, 

May touch the heart. 

And touch the heart it did. Sweet Burns! in the poet's pack where- 
with Life plays his most absorbing game with Destiny, thou were not 
only a trump, dear lad, but Ace of Hearts as well! 

When the poet's fame had been partially secured, and finding it 
hard to stem the current of his verses, which were then ringing through 
all Scotland and threatening to drown the piping voices of his literary 
contemporaries, they attacked his character. "A verse-monger!" they 
cried, "who makes his poetry the means of supporting his debaucheries 
in wine and women." Burns immediately acknowledged that he loved 
the women, but to the utter confusion of his critics in the satire — 
"There's Naught But Care"; among the verses appear these, — 

"The worldly race may riches chase, 
And riches still may fly them, O; 
And tho' at last they catch them fast, 
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 

"But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 
My arms about my dearie, O; 
And worldly cares, and worldly men 
May all go tapsalteerie, O. 

"And you so wise who sneer at this, 
You're naught but senseless asses, O; 
The wisest man the world e'er saw, 
He dearly loved the lasses, O. 

"Old Nature swears the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O; 
Her 'prentice nan', she tried on man, 
And then she made the lasses, O. 



191 

"The wisest man the world e'er saw," refers, of course, to King 
Solomon with his hundreds of wives, and intimates that the poet in his 
love of women at least had a shining example to follow. 

The greatest charm of Burns' poetry lies in its spontaniety and 
complete lack of precontrivance. Flowing without effort, the text is 
suddenly illumined with a dazzling outburst of genius compelling the 
wonder and enthusiasm of the reader. Throughout all the master- 
touch is recognized, and the pomp and pageantry of kings is handled 
with the same ease as the suffering of the wounded hare that limps 
painfully by. 

Burns died in utter poverty at the age of thirty-seven, the "fatal 
thirties of genius." The great poet-apostle of democracy, the truest 
friend of humanity, and the most wonderful poet that ever sprang 
from the bosom of the common people, was compelled on his death- 
bed to write and solicit a small loan from a friend to ease his last 
hours. Well may his heart have vented its anguish in the cry — 

"Oh, that the friendly e'er should need a friend!" 

The grave of the ploughman -poet has become the sanctuary of a 
nation, a shrine where Scotchmen worship the memory of the solitary 
boy who broke his noble heart in the misty past; a consecrated spot 
which receives the just homage of a kinder and a better world. 

Once when upbraided by his wife for his lack of standing in the 
business and social world of his boorish neighbors, he answered — 
"Never mind, my dear, I'll be more respected in a hundred years from 
now." And the true poet is ever a prophet; there is hardly a city of 
any size upon the globe where English is spoken but will hold some 
kind of celebration on the anniversary of the birth of Scotland's sweet- 
est singer. 




Copyright 1905 

by 

George Frederic Viett 



3ht finis? mxb itetrg 



From the Compilation 

. . of . . 
GEORGE F. VIETT 




Free-Lance Publishing Co. 

Norfolk, Va. 

Press of W. T. Barron & Co. 



196 

PREFACE. 

In the labor of love which has found a partial attainment in the 
pages which follow, the compiler feels a certain pride in the assertion 
that the incentive has not been altogether the item of pecuniary profit. 
Rather has the task been prompted by the desire that others should 
share the pleasure of the illustrious companionship that has so often 
cheered and blessed him on his literary pilgrimage. It is, in a measure, 
a labor of reverence and restitution, an appreciation of benefits be- 
stowed, and an act of devotion at the shrine of idealism in which others 
may share. 

In the language of the eminent Croly — 

"I longed for an opportunity of contributing my mite to 
the solid possessions by which posterity is wiser, happier, or 
purer, than the generation before them: — some trivial tribute 
to the mighty stream of time which ought to go on, continu- 
ally bringing richer fertility as it flowed." 

If any apology is needed, it might be for the somewhat fragment- 
ary and random aspect of the various prose selections, but in extenu- 
ation the compiler offers the limited opportunities and facilities under 
which this publication has been undertaken. Leisure and means are 
almost vital to the proper performance of any literary or artistic 
work, and what is here presented is the best possible under the limit- 
ations and conditions which have confronted him. 

The prose and poetical selections embodied in the foregoing pages 
comprise but a portion of a large collection of such in the possession 
of the compiler, representing the careful cullings from newspapers, 
periodicals and books, covering a period of quite twenty years. To 
preserve this life-work from the distressing possibility of loss by fire 
or otherwise has been among the reasons for putting a part of it in 
its present form. 

Many of the poems will be found to consist of the work of occa- 
sional writers, some of whom have doubtless exhausted themselves in 
the single minor masterpiece by which they are represented, and it 
is possible that a few of these have thus been saved from an unmer- 
ited oblivion. In several instances the author's name has not been 
ascertained and the piece stands uncredited. 

Although each and every poem in the collection was gathered 
from sources that evidenced no copyright, it is nevertheless the com- 
piler's fear that he may have unknowingly infringed somewhere. 
Against such a regrettable probability he offers to make every possible 
reparation, asking those who may be aggrieved to consider: First — 
the goodly company in which they find themselves; Secondly — the 
very limited edition of one thousand copies to which this work is con- 
fined; and Thirdly — the fact that the publication has not for its main 
purpose the making of money. 

Trusting that this latest venture upon the great ocean of literature 
will find fair weather, and the haven of generous recognition, the 
compiler leaves it in the hands of a discriminating public, and sub- 
scribes himself, Very sincerely, 

GEORGE F. VIETT. 



1ST 
INTRODUCTION. 

Max Maury, in his terse introduction to Matthew Gregory Lewis' 
splendid novel "Rosario," says: — 

"The intellectual treasure of humanity needs to be con- 
stantly husbanded by intelligent and energetic hands, so that 
every parcel of gold, foolishly thrown away, be returned 
with respectful love, to the common hoard." 

In the collection of prose and poetry here presented the compiler 
has gathered the stray parcels of gold that have met him on his literary 
pilgrimage, applying to the process of conservation, what he believes 
to be a mature literary judgment, and a keenly poetical taste as well. 
The appreciation of poetry is as much a matter of intuition as of reason, 
and a high quality of both constitutes the best light under which it 
may be viewed.. The high consideration with which for many years 
the poetical work of the present writer has been received, endows him, 
he feels, with a certain authority in this line, and this seemingly self- 
laudatory assertion is made solely to indicate that this compendium 
is the product of capable discrimination fortified by the true poetic 
instinct. 

As the poet can be fully understood only by the poetical, by the 
same token the best critic of poetry must always be the poet.. While 
the talented litterateur and the skillful analytist are entitled to re- 
spect in all their findings, they may yet not possess the inner subtlety 
of thought and feeling that would constitute them a court of last 
appeal where poetry pleads. Therefore, it is fair to assume that the 
value of any such material as is here presented, is enhanced in pro- 
portion to the conservator's ability to appreciate and judge the finer 
shades of poetical composition. As we lower the standard of quality 
in the judges, we find too often that poetical criticism becomes a 
matter of personal opinion based upon the limited view or small pre- 
judice of the critic, and this it is that serves but to strangle talent and 
confound confusion. If the writer is therefore frequently compelled 
to oppose his humble judgment against that of critics who bear the 
highest repute, it is with no small spirit of antagonistic egotism, but 
rather with an honest enthusiasm in behalf of art and beauty, and 
truth. 

In the selection of matter for this compilation several forms of 
criticism have been followed. While literary excellence must always 
be the primal requisite in every ambitious anthology, yet, it is evi- 
dent that an absolute or arbitrary enforcement of its decrees would 
operate to eliminate much beautiful sentiment and many striking 
passages of original thought. A diamond is valuable in the rough as 
well as in the symmetry of its finished perfection, and the rough dia- 
monds have a place in this casket. On the other hand, the finished 
gem, beautiful to look upon, may, upon a closer inspection, be found 
wanting in color and full of flaws. The color quality of the gem and 
the inspiration of the poem is what constitutes the soul of each. The 



198 

rhyme that rings true upon the counter of sense is far more pleasing 
and satisfying than the correct and artificial verse that confronts us 
from every pretentious page. It is almost useless to say that a poem 
may possess every element of correct construction and perfect meaning, 
and still lack the vital and potent quality of the real poem. 

What then constitutes the real poem? Perhaps no better standard 
of poetic excellence has ever been promulgated than that of Coleridge, 
who says: — 

"Good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its 
drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is 
everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful 
and intelligent whole." 

With this to guide us, there becomes apparent at once the vast 
gulf between the true poet and the correct versifier, him whose effusions 
are so much in evidence upon the pages of our multifarious monthly 
magazines, and whose sham sentiment and tortured expression might 
in the plainest prose be made to mean something. 

It is not claimed for this compilation that every poem is a master- 
piece, but the claim is made that there is nothing bad in the entire 
collection. Frequently a poem is entitled to live by reason of the 
beauty and excellence of a single verse; often even, by reason of a 
single line; where this is the case — where the good clearly overbalances 
the mediocre — the poem has been accorded space. Poor workmanship 
throughout, is of course not to be tolerated, nor has it been; but the 
imperfectly kept garden is a garden nevertheless, and in spots as 
beautiful and alluring as the most carefully cultured and tendered 
ones. 

It may be noted with some questioning that descriptive and nar- 
rative verse is accorded small space in this volume. . The omission is 
intentional. Poetry or verse is not the proper vehicle for common- 
place incident or ordinary description. The highest and truest poetry 
is that which suggests and not that which describes. A strictly nar- 
rative or descriptive poem is rarely transcendent except in those lines 
of it which prompt the fancy or reflection — which lead the mind to 
contemplation of some supreme truth or hidden beauty until then 
lying dormant within us. The detailed story of Enoch Arden for 
instance, beautiful as it is, falls tame and lifeless when compared with 
the fanciful imagery of the same writer's "Lotus Eaters." One is a 
story, beautifully told it is true, but only a story after all; in the other 
the narrative is entirely subservient or secondary to the marvelous 
suggestions of those profound emotions of peace and beauty which 
well upward with the full force of inspiration from the very soul 
of the poet, and this is the sort that touches the enchanted chord and 
quickens the heart of the reader. The dreamy unreality of the "Lotus 
Eaters" is far more alluring and charming than the precise detail 
of "Enoch Arden." 

In the highest form of poetry, we may agree then, that facts and 
figures should be subsidiary to the soul substance; that the sermon 



199 

should yield place to the song-, and that narration and description 
have nothing like the poetical value of emotion and feeling. 

A poem whatever its motive, must be primarily a work of art, 
and should contain food for the spirit as well as for the mind. While 
rhyme is not essential in versical composition, yet it is pleasing, and 
to the writer's mind the "singing" quality of a poem is a very vital 
part of its equipment, the lack of which is generally fatal to the higher 
efforts. Reason, of course, has claims second to none, but reason 
need not tyrannize over all the other elements. 

Inspiration is the soul, the master-spirit of all poetry, indeed the 
very winged messenger of genius; but without technique even inspira- 
tion becomes a sorry babbler. The crown and consummation of all 
poetical genius is to be found in the harmonious compression of thought 
which gives us a philosophy in a sentence, a panorama in a phrase, or 
a world of beauty in a single line. 

In the present compilation, therefore, the foregoing considera- 
tions have been kept steadily in view, and every poem here presented 
will be found to possess some pleasing or valuable quality for which 
in the writer's mind it was deemed worthy to grace these pages. 

The intention has not been to make a symposium of the cream 
of the world's poetical literature, this has been done too well and too 
frequently for any to attempt an improvement in that field. The works 
of the masters are accessible under a thousand different forms, and 
while no volume of poetry would be complete that did not give them 
some representation, we have mainly devoted our space to the master- 
pieces of the minor and occasional poets as elsewhere outlined. Among 
these will be found every variety and degree of expression, beauty, 
and thought. The great heart of humanity is moved through the 
emotions, and the verses richest in emotional quality have received 
the first consideration. In the great human symphony the note of 
pathos is the dominant key, and under this heading may be grouped 
the poems of reverie and reflection: of memories, moods and medita- 
tion; love, sorrow and despair. Pity is the white angel of the world, 
and by man the best beloved of all the heavenly tribes. She is the 
hand-maiden of Faith, the beautiful companion of Hope, and the twin- 
soul of Charity; hence the poems of pathos are among the sweetest 
and most touching of all. 

But the banquet is awaiting in the Temple of the Muse; the feast 
is spread, and we will not longer keep the guests waiting at the portals. 

Thanking you for your patience, and hoping to please, I am 

Yours faithfully, 

GEORGE F. VIETT. 




200 

CONTEXTS OF SECOND HALF, 
"IMPRESSIVE PASSAGES OF POWER AND BEAUTY.' 



POETRY— 

A Day Theodosia Garrison 285 

A Prayer Robert Louis Stevenson 220 

A Sea Romance Unidentified 269 

An Obstacle Charlotte P. Stetson 276 

Abide With Me W. H. Lyte 296 

After Death in Arabia Sir Edwin Arnold 294 

Ambition's Stream James Boyle O'Reilly 289 

Ballad of the Broken Troth Orelia Key Bell 290 

Battle Hymn of the Republic Julia Ward Howe 267 

Behind the Veil Joseph Salyards 292 

Beautiful Bells Unidentified 208 

Brevity of Life R. H. Wilde 270 

Britannia's Sailors Unidentified 297 

Come to Me, Dearest Joseph Brennan 212 

Could We But Know E. C. Stedman 248 

Day Dreams Pall Mall Gazette 221 

Days of My Youth St. George Tucker 273 

Death Florence Earle Coates 2 08 

Disenchantment Marion Douglass 297 

Dreamers James Barron Hope 214 

Each in His Own Tongue William Henry Carruth 2 75 

Easter Frances L. Mace 271 

England's Call Anon 2 80 

Fairy Plight Pall Mall Gazette 258 

Faith and Duty James Newton Matthews 2 24 

Felise! Unidentified 215 

Finis Unidentified 304 

God's Music F. E. Weatherly 205 

Guillielmus Rex Thomas Bailey Aldrich 205 

Heroines Anon 289 

Hide Thou This Clay Eden Phillpotts 242 

Human Happiness Unidentified 266 

If Flowers Could Sing B. D. Gaw 231 

If I Should Die To-night Unidentified 286 

Influence Unidentified 209 

Invictus Wm. Ernest Henley 288 

Laugh With the World Ella Wheeler Wilcox 301 

Lead, Kindly Light Cardinal Newman 226 

Life Paul Laurence Dunbar 210 

Lord of the Sea • . .British Nautical Magazine. ... 253 

Love Forever and a Day B. A. Richardson, Jr 2 77 

Motto of Virginia Anon 2 80 

My Soul R. H. Laughlin 249 

Monologue of Death Herman C. Merivale 2 78 



201 

Not Understood Thomas Bracken 225 

O, Let Me Now Consider Pall Mall Magazine 226 

Omar Khayyam .Justin McCarthy 229 

Opportunity John J. Ingalls 263 

On the Dizzy Heights Anon 261 

Pain Anon 222 

Praise of Death • Michael Field 287 

Private Smith of the Royals Herbert Cadett 274 

Quietus William Watson 255 

She's Up There, Old Glory! Frank L. Stanton 251 

Some Day Howard Farmer 257 

Spring Henry Timrod 216 

Tell Me So Lillian Whiting 250 

Tell Me Ye Winged Winds Unidentified 300 

Tiger William Blake 254 

The Eclipse of Poetry Ada Foster Alden 298 

The Great Misgiving William Watson 214 

The Marseille's Hymn Rouget de Lisle 295 

The Mississippi J. H. Blow 232 

The Old and the New Anon 211 

The Old Church at Jamestown. . . . S. S. Dawes 246 

The Old, Old Story John Boyle O'Reilly 211 

The Seas are Quiet Anon 221 

The Spacious Firmament on High. .Joseph Addison 255 

The Stirrup-Cup John Hay 2 91 

The Two Mysteries .Walt Whitman 2 99 

The Vanity of Human Pride William Knox 282 

Thou Canst Not Forget Me Unidentified 262 

To the Cuckoo John Logan 272 

Unforgotten Love Anon 303 

Waiting . . • John Burroughs 302 

Wander-Thirst Gerald Gould 256 

We Shall Be Satisfied Mary Bradley 268 

Weary the Waiting Frank L. Stanton 259 

When in Disgrace With Fortune. . .Shakespeare 213 

Which Road? Chicago Herald 264 

PROSE SELECTIONS — 

Age, The Caution of Wilkie Collins 223 

Albatross, The Frank Bullen 207 

American Statesmanship, High 

Tide of .. . • • A Diplomat 229 

American Revolution, The Goldwin Smith 261 

American Civil War, The A Diplomat 219 

Art Above Philosophy Leslie Stephens 260 

Atheism, The Christian-born Isaac Taylor 245 

Atheism, Shattered Rev. Thomas Pearson 247 

Atheism Rev. Thomas Pearson 233 

Autumn, A Picture of Benjamin Disraeli 298 



202 

Autumn, Stately Aspect of Blackmore 237 

Barren Sands Imbibe the Shower. .Rev. F. W. Farrar 246 

Belief, Power of Martineau 257 

Bird and Beast, Sanctuary for George F. Viett 256 

Bible, The • Coulson Kernahan 235 

Britain's Far-flung Battle Line. . . .Henry Ward Beecher 246 

Cape Horn, Off W. Clark Russell 252 

Censure, Unjust John Foster 244 

Chatterton, The Boy Daniel Wilson 22 8 

Christianity, All-Sufficient Nevison Loraine 213 

Christianity or Nothing Rev. Henry Footman 24 3 

Christianity, Unassailable Rev. F. W. Farrar 227 

Christ and Women Rev. F. W. Farrar 265 

Confucianism, The Blight of Rev. F. W. Farrar 206 

Coral Island, The New Frank Bullen 207 

Courtesan, The Wilkie Collins 235 

Contemplation, Spiritual Lord Lytton 259 

Comforter, Pang of the Coulson Kernahan 303 

Creation, The Mystery of Goldwin Smith 231 

Criticism, The Cant of Sterne 2 36 

Death of Phra, The Edwin Lester Arnold 222 

Death of the Young Charles Dickens 224 

Death, The Wisdom of -Balzac 212 

Derelict, The W. Clark Russell 224 

Despotism, Rude License of George Augustus Sala 2 95 

Deception of Lofty Dreams Coulson Kernahan 211 

Dream, The Opium De Quincey 235 

Each in His Own Place David Starr Jordan 240 

Education, The Real • Frances Cobbe 219 

Efficacious Advice Talleyrand 298 

English Channel, The W. Clark Russell 219 

Evil. Philosophy of David Starr Jordan 259 

Faith and Religion, Defense of Rev. F. W. Farrar 238 

Faith Undying W. S. Lilly 242 

Fortune's Ebb Tide • George Augustus Sala 2 06 

Folly, Is Is Earthly Only? George Croly 237 

Freedom George Croly 228 

God's Law the Law of Nature Mozley 227 

God Over All Marie Corelli 250 

Habit, Power of ...De Balzac 277 

Hell-Hound Race, The George Augustus Sala 2 92 

Hell-Dogs in Human Form Charles Dickens 227 

Hills, The Eternal George Croly 229 

Hope W. Clark Russell 230 

Human Sorrow, Sublimity of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, 2 71 

Human Life, Perversity of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, 2 92 

Human Ignorance, Immensity of. .Rev. F. W. Farrar 261 

Imagination George Croly 244 

Immortality, Assurance of Rev. Thomas Pearson 2 54 



203 

Immortality Thomas Carlyle 218 

Insanity George Croly 243 

Job, The Book of George G. Bradley, D. D 257 

Judgment, and the Day of Doom. .Dr. Whewell 207 

Land of "Might-Have-Been," The. .Marie Corelli 26 6 

Life, What Is ? Nevison Loraine 252 

Life Robert G. Ingersoll 211 

Life -De Quincey 291 

Love's Way Robert L. Stevenson 238 

Love, The Grandeur of .Victor Hugo 260 

Man at the Plow Eugene Sue 213 

Man, a Child of Dreams W. Clark Russell 261 

Materialism, The Blight of Manzini 230 

Martial Magnificence of Ancient 

Rome George Croly 233 

Miracle, The Greater Rev. F. W. Farrar 242 

Miracles and Eternity Rev. F. W. Farrar 230 

Miracles, Belief in Logical George Croly 237 

Modesty Henri-Frederic Amiel 240 

Money Worship, Menace of A Diplomat 303 

Moonlight, The Spell of Henri-Frederic Amiel 2 36 

Monopoly, a Public Function Edward Bellamy 264 

Mortgage, The Irrepressible American Banker 272 

Multum in Parvo 265 

Mummy, The Edwin Lester Arnold 264 

Music, Climax of De Quincey 236 

Music, The Power of S. Baring Gould 209 

Music, The Spell of Henryk Sienkiewicz 206 

Music of the Temple, The George Croly 241 

Nature, Implacability of Saltus 274 

Nature, The Sermons of Ouida 219 

Ocean Winds Victor Hugo 270 

Peace on Earth .Rev. Henry Footman, M. A. . . 243 

Philosopher's Humanity, The De Quincey 240 

Pity, Woman's Special Virtue Monk Lewis 264 

Poetry Shelley 10 (part 1st) 

Polar Regions, The Eugene Sue 237 

Prayer Not Vain Robert Louis Stevenson 244 

Religion, Salvation of Liberty Henri-Fdereric Amiel 294 

Rest in the Deep W. Clark Russell 254 

Retrospect and Prospect George F. Viett 241 

Rome in Her Decadence Rev. F. W. Farrar 217 

Sailor Philosopher, The W. Clark Russell 208 

Scandal Wilkie Collins 222 

Science, Insufficiency of Frances Cobbe 223 

Sea, Depths of Victor Hugo 2 90 

Sea, A Horror of the Victor Hugo 288 

Sea, Moods of . . A. Conan Doyle 261 

Sea, Peril at Frank Bullen 284 



204 

Sea, Solemn Grandeur of Frank Bullen 223 

Sea, The Cruelty of Victor Hugo 207 

Sin, Obscuring Power of Rev. P. W. Farrar 219 

Sleep De Quincey 2 90 

Snow Storm, The Blackmore 302 

Soul, The Human .Victor Hugo 217 

Sowing and Reaping Rev. F. W. Farrar 206 

Solace, The Unfailing Rev. P. W. Farrar 218 

South Sea Islands, Among the. . . .Frank Bullen 245 

Spirit of the Age, The D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, 217 

Spring, A Day in Victor Hugo 233 

Storm and Its Shadow Marie Corelli 258 

Strauss' Philosophy Impotent Rev. F. W. Farrar 209 

Sun-Rise in the City Ouida 217 

Sun-Rise Over Africa Frank Bullen 275 

Sunset, The • Robert Louis Stevenson 210 

"Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt" De Maurier 220 

The "Babbling o' Green Fields". . .D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, 270 

The Common Man David Starr Jordan 2 34 

The Ice Island Russell and Bullen 234 

The Mind of John Foster Peter Bayne 281 

The Skeptic's Duty Nevison Doraine 244 

The Vision Marie Corelli 213 

Taylor, Isaac, Last Words of 268 

Terror De Quincey 238 

Thirty-six, The Age of Robert Louis Stevenson 2 91 

Thought and Emotion Prof. Barrett Wendell 210 

Titan Triad of Guatemala, The. . . .Charles F. Lummis 241 

Time Charles Dickens 263 

Trilby, The Song of De Maurier 238 

Tyranny, Petty Intolerable George Croly 241 

Tyre, Ancient Edwin Lester Arnold 254 

Unbelief and Modern Civilization. .Rev. F. W. Farrar 301 

Unbelief, Modern Rev. Henry Footman, M. A. . . 211 

Viking, The Last Stand of Edwin Lester Arnold 243 

War, Horrors of . .H. Sienkiewicz 252 

Wayfarers in Life's Pilgrimage. . . .Charles Dickens 240 

Wild Oats, After Sowing Cutliffe Hyne 237 

Will, The Power of Benjamin Disraeli 281 

Wine and Opium, Effects Con- 
trasted De Quincey 236 

Woman, Christ's Uplifting of rtev. F. W. Farrar 2 65 

Woman, Estimate of Some Marie Corelli 266 

Woman, Power of Robert Louis Stevenson 25 9 

Woman, The Love of Victor Hugo 2 73 

World's Opinion, The George Croly 2 34 



GOD'S MUSIC. 

Since ever the world was fashioned, 

— Water, and air, and sod, — 
A music of divers meaning: 

Has flowed from the hand of God. 
In valley and gorge and upland, 

On stormy mountain height, 
He makes Him a harp of the forest, 

He sweeps the chords with might. 
He puts forth His hand to the ocean, 

He speaks and the waters flow, 
Now in a chorus of thunder, 

Now — in a cadence low. 
He touches the waving flower-bells, 

He plays on the woodland streams, 
A tender song like a mother 

Sings to her child in dreams. 
But the music divinest and dearest 

Since ever the years began, 
Is the manifold passionate music 

He draws from the heart of man. 
— F. E. Weatherly in "Temple Bar.' 



GUILLIELMUS REX. 



The folk who lived in Shakespeare's day 
And saw that gentle figure pass 

By London Bridge, his frequent way — 
They little knew what man he was. 

The pointed beard, the courteous mien, 
The equal port to high and low, 

All this they saw or might have seen, 
But not the light behind the brow! 




mm 



The doublet's modest grey or brown, 
The slender sword-hilt's plain device, 

What sign had these for prince or clown? 
Few turned, or none, to scan him twice. 



Yet 'twas the king of England's kings! 

The rest, with all their pomps and trams, 
Are mouldered, half-remembered things — 

'Tis he alone that lives and reigns! 

— THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 





206 

THE EBB-TIDE OF FORTUNE. 

There are certain periods in the life even of the most fortunate 
man when his luck is at a desperately low ebb — when everything 
seems to go amiss with him — when nothing that he can turn his hand 
to prospers — when friends desert him, and the companions of his 
sunshiny days chide him for not having made better use of his oppor- 
tunities, — when, do what he will, he cannot avert the black storm; — 
when ruin seems impending, and catastrophe is on the cards — when 
he is down, in a word, and the despiteful are getting ready to gibe 
at him in his misfortune, and to administer unto him the last kick. 
These times of trial and bitter travail oft-times strike one who has 
just attained middle age — the half-way house of life, and then, 'tis 
the merest chance in the world whether he will be enabled to pick 
himself up again, or be condemned forevermore to poverty and con- 
tumely — to the portion of weeds and outworn faces. * * * * I 
was grievously hard-driven not alone to make both ends meet, but to 
discover anything that could have its ending in a meal of victuals. * 
* * * I speak not of poets, for it is their eternal portion, seem- 
ingly, to be born, to live, and to die poor. 

— GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 



THE BLIGHT OF CONFUCIANISM. 

Confucius was a sage, yet he correctly described himself as a 
transmitter, not a maker; his example, in more than one respect, was 
distinctly questionable; he reduced religion to a reflexive ceremony 
of empty proprieties; he gave no impulse to holiness; he had no sym- 
pathy with progress; and to him, beyond all question, in the opinion 
of close and candid witnesses, is due in great measure, the falsity, the 
senility, the atrophy, moral and intellectual, of the vast race which 
chose him as their ideal. — REV. P. W. FARRAR. 



THAT WHICH YE SOW. 

Those solemn warnings of Holy Writ that men must possess in 
manhood the sins even of their youth; that if they sow to the flesh 
they shall of the flesh reap corruption; that the punishment of sensu- 
ality, working not by special interventions but by general laws, bears a 
fearful resemblance to the sin itself; that the Nemesis of a desecrated 
body is an enfeebled understanding and a tormented and a darkened 
soul. — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



THE SPEUL OF MUSIC. 

When I play and sing I see things which I did not know as exist- 
ing in my dominions or in the world. Music opens new kingdoms to 
me, new mountains, new seas, new delights hitherto unknown. Most 
frequently I cannot name them, nor grasp them, I only feel them. I 
feel the gods, I see Olympus. Some kind of breeze from beyond the 
earth blows in on me; I behold, as in a mist, certain immeasurable 
greatnesses, but calm and bright as sunshine. 

— HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ. 



207 

JUDGMENT AND THE DAY OF DOOM. 

Let us not deceive ourselves. Indefinite duration and gradual 
decay are not the destiny of this universe. It will not find its termina- 
tion only in the imperceptible crumbling 1 of its materials or the clogging 
of its wheels. It steals not calmly and slowly to its end. No ages 
of long and deepening twilight shall gradually bring the last setting 
of the sun. No mountains sinking under the decrepitude of years or 
weary rivers ceasing to rejoice in their courses, shall prepare men 
for the abolition of the earth. No placid euthanasia shall silently 
lead on the dissolution of the natural world. But the trumpet shall 
sound, the struggle shall come, this goodly frame of things shall be 
wrenched and crushed by the arm of its Omnipotent Maker. It shall 
expire in the throes and agonies of some fierce convulsion; and the 
same hand which plucked the elements from the dark and troubled 
slumbers of chaos shall cast them into their tomb, pushing them aside 
that they may no longer stand between His face and the creatures 
whom He shall come to judge. — DR. WHEWELL. 



THE NEAV CORAL ISLAND. 

The long indolent Pacific swell, sweeping majestically from conti- 
net to continent across half the world, met the mushroom growth and 
immediately raised its awful voice in thunderous protest against such 
an addition to the already innumerable dangers of that perilous region. 

— FRANK BULLEN. 



CRUELTY OF THE SEA. 

Ordinarily the sea conceals her crimes. She delights in privacy. 
Her unfathomable deeps keep silence. She wraps herself in a mystery 
which rarely consents to give up its secrets. We know her savage 
nature, but who can tell the extent of her dark deeds? She is at once 
open and secret; she hides away carefully, and cares not to divulge 
her action; wrecks a vessel, and, covering it with the waves, engulfs 
it deep as if conscious of her guilt. Among her crimes is hypocrisy. 
She slays and steals, conceals her booty, puts on an air of unconscious- 
ness, and smiles. ******* 

No wild beast can compare with the sea for mangling its prey. 
The waves are full of talons. The north wind bites, the billows de- 
vour, the waves are like hungry jaws. The ocean strikes like a lion 
with its heavy paw, seizing and dismembering at the same moment. 

— VICTOR HUGO. 



THE ALBATROSS. 

Easily first in point of interest, as well as size, comes the lordly 
albatross, whose home is far south of the Line, and whose empire is 
that illimitable area of turbulent waves which sweep resistless around 
the world. Nothing in nature conveys to the mind so wonderful an 
idea of effortless velocity as does his calm, majestic flight. 

— FRANK BULLEN. 



208 

DEATH. 



I am the key that parts the gates of Fame; 
I am the cloak that covers cowering Shame; 
I am the final goal of every race; 
I am the storm-tossed spirit's resting-place; 

The messenger of sure and swift relief, 
Welcomed with waitings and reproachful grief; 
The friend of those that have no friend hut me, 
I hreak all chains, and set all captives free. 

I am the cloud that, when Earth's day is done, 
An instant veils an unextinguished sun; 
I am the hrooding hush that follows strife, 
The waking from a dream that Man calls — Life. 
—FLORENCE EAKLE COATES. 



THE SAILOR PHILOSOPHER. 

He kept on a reading and a reading about souls and how they 
were saved and the like, till he drifted into a regular ocean of ideas 
with such a sea running that his ballast shifted, and there he was with 
a strong list, everything wrong, rudder gone, compass overboard, 
everything adrift. There's no use in dropping a line overboard and 
keeping on paying out when you know there's no soundings to be got. 
Here and there life shoals, and you get bottom; but it's mostly so deep 
that the furthest of those stars up there are not further 
off than the ocean bed of existence is from the reach of our knowledge. 

— W. CLARK RUSSELL. 



BEAUTIFUL BELLS. 



Chime again, chime again, beautiful hells, , 

Sweet thy soft melody floats on the wind; 
Bursting at intervals over the sails 

Leaving a train of reflection behind. 
Answering echoes that gather around, 

Call from the heart every thought that is dear, 
Voices of friendship still ring in each sound 

Bidding me welcome thy chimes with a tear. 

Chime again, chime again, beautiful hells, 

Linger awhile o'er the deep, dusky hay, 
Fainter and fainter thy melody swells, 

Fast the land fades and thy sounds die away. 
Pale is the light that silvers the deep, 

Fast sails my bark from that dear, happy shore, 
Lonely I'm left on the waters to weep, 

Beautiful bells I shall hear thee no more. 

— AUTHOR UNIDENTIFIED. 



203 

STRAUSS' PHILOSOPHY IMPOTENT. 

No, the Gospels do not account for Christ; but the reality and the 
grandeur of Christ are the sole explanation of the possibility of the 
Gospels. And if, with these facts in view, we read the pages of 
Strauss, based as they are on a priori assumption, crowded as they 
are with captious frivolities and arbitrary criticisms, even the scribe 
who is least instructed in the kingdom of Heaven, may face them with- 
out dismay, and may lay them down, not indeed witnout sadness, yet 
with a strong conviction that God's own hand smites with uncon- 
scious paralysis the strength of those whose labor and genus — like 
desecrated incense upon unhallowed altars^— is expended in tne cause 
of unbelief. — F. W. PARRAR. 



INFLUENCE. 



May every soul that touches mine — 

Be it the slightest contact — get therefrom some good, 

Some little grace, one kindly thought, 

One aspiration yet unfelt, one bit of courage 

For the darkening sky, one gleam of faith 

To brave the thickening ills of life, 

One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists, 

To make this life worth while 

And heaven a surer heritage. 

—UNIDENTIFIED. 



THE POWER OF MUSIC. 



Wondrous is the power of music, passing that of fabled necro- 
mancy. It takes a man up out of his most sordid surroundings, and 
sets him in heavenly places. It touches the fibres of the inner life. 
It seals the eyes to outward sights, and unfurls new vistas full of 
transcendental beauty; it breathes over hot wounds and heals them; 
it calls to the surface springs of pure delight, and bids them gush 
forth in an arid desert. 

It was so now, as, under the sympathetic fingers of Judith, 
Haydn's song of the "Spring" was sung. A May world arose in that 
dingy little room; the walls fell back and disclosed green woods thick 
with red robins and bursting bluebells, fields golden with buttercups, 
hawthorns clothed in flower, from which sang the blackbird, thrush, 
the finch, and the ouzel. The low ceiling rose and overarched as the 
speed-well blue vault of heaven, the close atmosphere was dispelled 
by a waft of crisp, pure air; shepherds piped, Boy Bluet blew his 
horn, and milkmaids rattled their pails and danced a ballet on the 
turf; and over all, down into every corner of the soul, streamed the 
glorious golden sun, filling the heart with gladness. 

— S. BARING GOULD, in "The Roar of the Sea." 



210 

THOUGHT AND EMOTION. 

Thought and emotion, when we stop to consider them, are the 
most fascinatingly marvellous facts that human beings can contem- 
plate. They are beyond all other realities. * * * * * To each 
and all of us, the final reality of life is the thought, which, with the 
endless surge of emotion — now tempestuous, again almost impercept- 
ible — makes up conscious existence. Final realities though they be, 
however, thought and emotion are essentially things that in our hab- 
itual thoughtlessness we are apt to call unreal. As we know them, 
they are immaterial. No systems can measure their extent or their 
bulk; and though they are in some degree conditioned by time, it is 
so slightly that we may almost say — as in a single instant our thought 
ranges from primeval nebulae to cosmic death and celestial eternity — 
they are free from time limit, as well as from the limits of space. 
* * * * * The thought and emotion of every living being, then, 
is an immaterial reality, eternally different from every other in the 
universe; and this is the reality that style must express. * * * * 
The task of the writer, then, is a far more subtle and wonderful thing 
than we are apt to think it; nothing less than to create a material 
body, that all men may see, for an eternally immaterial reality that 
only through this imperfect symbol can ever reveal itself to any but 
the one human being who knows it he knows not how. * * * * 
Every piece of style may be said to impress readers in three ways — 
intellectually, emotionally, aesthetically; to appeal to their under- 
standings, their feelings, their taste. ***** To the intel- 
lectual quality of style we give the name "Clearness"; to the emo- 
tional, "Force," and to the aesthetic, "Elegance." 

— Professor Barrett Wendell. 



LIFE. 

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, 
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in; 
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, 
And never a laugh but the moan comes double — 
And that is life! 

A crust and a corner that love makes precious, 
With the smile to warm and the tears to refresh us, 
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, 
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter — 
And that is life! 

—PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR. 



THE SUNSET. 

The sun had just lighted his lurid torches, preparatory to his de- 
parture for the night, and was reflecting a scene of incomparable 
beauty and glory upon a gorgeous pageantry of constantly shifting 
clouds. —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 



211 

THE DECEPTION OF LOFTY DREAMS. 

The self- delusion which makes "the conscience dreamy with 
the anodyne of lofty thought, while the life is grovelling and sensual," 
is the most fatal of the many pitfalls which beset the feet of the man 
of emotional and poetic temperament. It is such a conscience-soothing, 
soul-benumbing delusion that it works his ruin even while he thinks 
it his surest salvation. It comes to him with its harlot beauty draped 
in the robes of an angel of light, and sings hymns before the very 
gates of hell; and bids him close his eyes in prayer, that it may set 
his unsuspecting feet upon the high-road that leads to destruction. 

— COULSON KERNAHAN. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW. 



"A flower unborn; a book unread; 
A tree with fruit unharvested ; 
A path untrod; a house whose rooms 
Lack yet the heart's divine perfumes; 
A landscape whose wide border lies 
In silent shades; 'neath silent skies; 
A wondrous Fountain yet unsealed; 
A casket with its gifts concealed, 
This is the year that for you waits, 
Beyond To-morrow's mystic gates." 

LIFE. 

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two 
eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry 
aloud, and the only answer is the echo of that wailing cry. From the 
voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the 
night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle 
of a wing. — ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 



MODERN UNBELIEF. 

This Modern Unbelief, gives a terrible stimulus to the darker side 
of our human nature, lending as it does the aid of philosophical plaus- 
ibilities to the ethics of self-indulgence and the creed of lust. 

— REV. HENRY FOOTMAN, M. A. 



THE OLD, OLD STORY. 
'Tis the old, old story; one man will read 

His lesson of toil in the sky; 

While another is blind to the present need, 

But sees with the spirit's eye. 
You may grind their souls in the selfsame mill, 

You may bind them heart and brow; 
But the poet will follow the rainbow still, 

And his brother will follow the plow. 

— John Boyle O'Reilly. 



212 

COME TO ME, DEAREST. 



Come to me, Dearest, I'm lonely without thee, 
Day-time and night-time I'm thinking about thee; 
Night-time and day-time in dreams I behold thee, 
Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee. 
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten, 
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten; 
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly, 
Come in thy purity, queenly and holy. 

As swallows that flit round the desolate ruin, 
Telling of Spring and its joyous renewing, 
So thoughts of thy love and its manifold treasure 
Are circling my heart with their promise of pleasure. 
O, Spring of my spirit, O, May of my bosom — 
Shine out on my soul till it bourgeon and blossom! 
The waste of my life has a rose-root within it, 
Thy sweet love alone to the sunshine can win it. 

You have been glad when you knew I was gladdened, 
You have been sad when you knew I was saddened; 
Our hearts ever answer in tune and in time — love, 
As octave to octave, and rhyme unto rhyme — love; 
I cannot weep but your tears will be flowing, 
You cannot smile but my cheek will be glowing; 
I would not die without you by my side — love. 
You would not linger when I shall have died — love. 

Figure that moves like a fairy of even', 
Smile that to me seems a reflex of heaven; 
Eyes like the skies of poor Erin our mother, 
Where shadows and sunshine are chasing each other. 
Come, for my heart in your absence is weary, 
Haste, for my spirit is sickened and dreary; 
Come, to the arms which alone should caress thee, 
Come, to the heart that is throbbing to press thee. 

—JOSEPH BKENNAN. 



THE WISDOM OF DEATH. 



The death-bed has a wisdom of its own. It is a matter of common 
observation that, stretched on that couch, artless girls of the most 
tender age will display the sapience of the centenarian, develop the 
gift of prophecy, pass judgment on the members of their families, and 
read the hearts of the most accomplished hypocrites. This is the 
poetry of Death. — BALZAC. 



213 
WHEN IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE. 



When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 

I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 

And look upon myself, and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 

Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, 
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, 

With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 

Haply I think on thee, — and then my state 
(Like to the lark at break of day arising 

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; 
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, 
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

— SHAKESPEARE. 



CHRISTIANITY ALL-SUFFICIENT. 

Christianity has its sublime declarations, its noble ethical princi- 
ples, its historical and internal corroborations; it is a creed confessedly 
loftiest in thought, purest in principle, illumined with unique splendor 
of immortal hope, and round it murmur Aeolian airs of memory; yet 
how often it is bartered, an ancient birthright for a mess of pottage; 
dropped, indeed — substance for shadow — to snatch at a creed that 
shuts out God and immortality, and shuts in life within the precarious 
precincts of the present — a creed of frigid negations, alike without 
dignity, delight, or expectation? 

Amid the advancing movements of present-day activity it betrays 
no sign of abated energy or adequate leadership. * * * From age 
to age, and amid all the chances and changes of time, it preserves the 
grand secret of satisfying some of the profoundest yearnings of human 
life. It distils solace in dreariest sorrow, affords succour in gravest 
crises; gives "oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the 
spirit of heaviness"; brightens joyful hours with a sunnier glow, and 
inspires with the exultant assurance of eternal life the last moments 
of mortality. — NEVISON LORAINE, in "The Sceptic's Creed." 

THE VISION. 

The entrancing beauty of that face was not altogether unfamiliar. 
I felt I must have loved and lost her ages upon ages ago! Crowned 
with white flowers, and robed in a garb that seemed spun from mid- 
summer moonbeams, she stood — a smiling Maiden Sweetness in a para- 
dise of glad sights and sounds. 

— MARIE CORELLI, in "Ardath." 



THE MAN AT THE PLOW. 

I have put my hand also to the plow — there is no derogation in 
it, for the labor which provides food for man is thrice hallowed, and 
it is truly to serve and glorify God to cultivate and enrich the earth 
he has created. — EUGENE SUE. 



214 



DREAMERS. 

Fools laugh at dreamers, and the dreamers smile 
In answer, if they any answer make; 
They know that Saxon Alfred could not bake 
The oaten cakes, but that he snatched his Isle 
Back from the fierce and bloody-handed Dane. 

And so, they leave the plodders to their gains — 
Quit money-changing for the student's lamp, 
And tune the harp to gain thereby some camp, 
Where what they learn is worth a kingdom's crown; 
They fashion bows and arrows to bring down 
The mighty truths which sail the upper air; 
To them the facts which make the fools despair 
Become familiar, and a thousand things 
Tell them the secrets they refuse to kings. 

— JAMES BARRON HOPE. 



THE GREAT MISGIVING. 



"Not ours," say some, "the thought of death to dread; 

Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell: 
Life is a feast, and we have banqueted — 

Shall not the worms as well?" 

"The after-silence, when the feast is o'er, 

And void the places where the minstrels stood, 

Differs in nought from what hath been before, 
And is nor ill nor good." 

Ah, but the apparition — the dumb sign — 
The beckoning finger bidding me forego 

The fellowship, the converse and the wine, 
The songs, the festal glow! 

And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, 
And while the purple joy is passed about, 

"Whether 'tis ampler day divinelier lit 
Or homeless night without; 

And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see 
New prospects, or fall sheer — a blinded thing — 

There is, O grave, thy hourly victory, 
And there, O death, thy sting! 

—WILLIAM WATSON. 



"GOLDEN SANDS OF OUR YOUNG AMBITION." 

Men were gods, women were angels! the world seemed but a wide 
scroll for the signatures of poets, and mine, I swore, should be clearly 
written! — MARIE CORELLI, in "Ardath." 



215 
FELISE! 

(On Meeting at the Theatre a Sweetheart of Youthful Days.) 



Over the glare o' the lights, Felise — 

Over the glare o' the lights, 
You move with the spangled mysteries 

In the dance of a thousand nights. 
In the dance of a thousand nights, Felis 

But your face so shadowy seems! 
'Tis a ghost from the past that comes at last 

Haunting an old man's dreams. 

There is grey in the gleam of your curls, Felise — 

Grey where the gold should he; 
Since you danced that day in the far-away, 

Kissing your hand to me. 
Kissing your hand to me, Felise — 

Tossing your curls my way; 
Y r ou have danced in the dance of a thousand nights, 

But not as you danced that day! 

Do you see me here? for your eyes Felise 

Roam over the thronged parquet; 
Here — in the sound of the symphonies 

An old man, hent and grey? 
And old man, hent and grey, Felise — 

Dike you he has played his part 
Since that beautiful day in life's May, Felise, 

When you danced away with his heart! 

There are tears of the years in his eyes, Felise — 

Of the years so fair and fleet, 
Withered and wan as the rose that lies 

Forgotten at your feet. 
Forgotten before your feet, Felise — 

A rose that bloomed for your breast; 
The bitter has blighted the sweet Felise, 

And the dregs to your lips are pressed. 

Out with the luring lights, Felise — 

Out with the luring lights! 
Silence the thrilling symphonies 

In the dance of a thousand nights! 
The shadow deepens and glooms, Felise — 

O'er life with its troubled trust, 
And an unseen daisy blooms Felise — 

Over a heart in dust. 

—AUTHOR UNIDENTIFIED. 



216 



SPRING. 



Spring, with that nameless pathos in 
the air 

Which dwells with all things fair, — 

Spring, with her golden suns and sil- 
ver rain, 

Is with us once again! 

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine 

burns 
Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
Into a royal court, with green festoons, 
The banks of dark lagoons; 
In the deep heart of every forest-tree 
The blood is all aglee; 
And there's a look about the leafless 

bowers 
As if they dreamed of flowers. 

Already, here and there, on frailest 

stems, 
Appear some azure gems, 
Small as might deck, upon a gala -day, 
The forehead of a fay. 
In gardens you may note, amid the 

dearth, 
The crocus breaking earth, 
And, near the snow-drop's tender 

white and green, 
The violet in its screen. 

But many gleams and shadows needs 
must pass 

Along the budding grass, 

And weeks go by, before the enam- 
oured South 

Shall kiss the rose's mouth; 

Still there's a sense of blossoms yet un- 
born 

In the sweet airs of morn: 

One almost looks to see the very 
street 

Grow purple at his feet. 

At times a fragrant breeze comes 

floating by, 
And brings, you know not why, 
A feeling as when eager crowds await 
Before a palace gate 
Some wondrous pageant; and you 

scarce would start 
If, from a beech's heart, 
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, 

should say, 
"Behold me! I am May!" 

—HENRY TIMROD. 




217 

ROME IN HER DECADENCE. 

We may read in the compressed and haughty page of Tacitus the 
intensity of their terror and the agony of their despair. 
"On that hard, Pagan world, disgust 
And sated loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell." 
Their sinful amusements, their gluttonous debaucheries, their san- 
guinary rage, have darkened human life to this day. 

For us, let it have been enough to glance with a shudder, and to 
pass by not unwarned; let it be enough to note how, in his Epistle to 
the Romans, the great Apostle who was its contemporary seized, as 
it were, that haughty, glittering, abominable civilization, and with 
firm hand, in letters that are indelible, branded upon its insolent and 
shameless brow the festering stigma of his stern and terrible rebuke. 

— REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



SUN -RISE IN THE CITY. 

Sunrise is beautiful in the country; but in the by-ways of a filthy 
city it is only sad — ay, and even fearful. Night pityingly covers with 
its cool grey shade, that scrofula of brick, and mud, and dirt and 
vileness, with which men have defaced the sweet, fair face of nature; 
but the sunrise only shows in their uttermost nakedness those throb- 
bing festers of the earth which your mad humanity exalts. 

— OUIDA. 



THE HUMAN SOUL. 

Nowhere can eye of man find more dazzling light or denser shadow 
than in man; he can fix on a no more dreadful, complicated, mysteri- 
ous or infinite matter. The sky is a sight more grand than the sea, 
but grander than either is the inside of the soul. Were it only to 
write a poem on one soul, the meanest of man's, it would be melting 
down all epics into one, superior and definitive. Conscience is the 
chaos of fancies, desires and temptations; the furnace of dreams, the 
den of shameful ideas; the pandemonium of sophisms and the passions' 
battle-field. At a set hour, pierce through the corpse-like face of a 
human creature, when reflecting, and look around within — gaze on 
the soul in that obscurity. In that enclosed stillness giants wage battle 
as in Homer, dragons and hydras intertwine with clouds of phantams 
as in Milton, and visionary spirals are as in Dante. 

A sombre thing is this infinity which man bears about in himself, 
and by which in despair he meaures the wills of his brain and actions 
of his life. —VICTOR HUGO. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 

We are pulling down our old barns and building greater ones; 
we are grovelling on the ground before a golden image, like that set 
up of old in the plain of Babylon; we are searching for a vulgar and 
ignoble philosopher's stone. 

D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 



218 

THE UNFAILING SOLACE. 

In the dim hours of sorrow and bereavement; in the hours when 
like a grotto of icicles under the noonday beam, all our vain hopes, 
all our cherished aspirations are melting into a rain of tears; in the 
hours of painful lassitude, when we hear 

"Time flowing through the middle of the night;" 

in the hour when, like an uncertain echo in ihe lonely corridors of 
some haunted house, we hear fa" off the monotonous footfall of ap- 
proaching death; what is it that calms, and comforts, and soothes 
us then? Is it any discovery of science? Io it anv scheme of philos- 
ophy? Is it even the sublime vision of Dante, or the lordly eloquence 
of Milton? Is it anything that orator has uttered and poet sung? 
Nay, when the melody of lyric songs has lost its charm, and the music 
of memory and her siren daughters has been brought low, we still 
listen — when we can listen to nothing else — to tb.3 Beatitudes which 
Christ spake to the multitudes as they sat listening among the moun- 
tain lilies, or to those last words, more precious than archangel's 
utterance, which on the same night He was betrayed He spake to the 
beloved ones, when the traitor had gone out and it was night. 

— REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



IMMORTALITY. 

Is the past annihilated, then, or only past; is the Future non- 
extant or only future? Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and 
Hope, already answer, already through those mystic avenues, thou 
the Earth-blinded summonest both Past and Future, and communest 
with them, though as yet darkly, and with mute beckonings. The 
curtains of Yesterday drop down, the curtains of Tomorrow roll up; 
but Yesterday and Tomorrow both are. Pierce through the Time- 
Element, glance into the Eternal. Believe what thou flndest written 
in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all Thinkers, in all ages, 
have devoutly read it there, that Time and Space are not God, but 
creations of God; that with God it is a universal Here, so it is an 
everlasting Now. 

And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immortality? O Heaven! 
Is the white tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and 
had to be left behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale, 
mournfully receding Mile stone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered 
miles we have journeyed on alone — but a pale spectral Illusion! Is 
the lost Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mys- 
teriously, with God! — Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows 
have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, 
and whatever is, and whatever will be, is even now and forever. This 
should it unhappily seem new, thou mayst ponder at thy leisure; for 
the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries, believe it thou 
must; understand it thou canst not. 

—THOMAS CARLYLE. 



219 
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 

It revealed in its terrible convulsions an epitome of the spirit, 
morals and temper of the American people, evolving and developing 
as such a momentous crisis must, their lofty, their debased and their 
hopelessly indifferent qualities. Patriotism, self-sacrifice, devotion 
and unselfishness, were as conspicuous features of both sides, as un- 
fortunately were also treachery, monstrous selfishness and every other 
form of moral obliquity. ***** And they went, and they 
fought, and duty inspired the one and love the other, and their hero- 
ism was no less, and the angel of Death oft descending upon them 
lying side by side, beneath the sombre pines of Virginia, could award 
to neither the invidious palm of victory, for both had bravely courted 
and suffered death for what each deemed the right, and both had im- 
mortalized American manhood. — A DIPLOMAT. 



THE OBSCURING POWER OF SIN. 

Let us then at least beware that in us unholiness does not cloud 
the spiritual eye and dull the spiritual ear; for the rank mists which 
reek upward from the sinful heart do tend most fatally to obliterate 
the Image, the Memory, the Life of Christ — they end by hiding from 
the human soul even the Vision of its Creator in fold on fold of a more 
and more inpenetrable night. — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



THE REAL EDUCATION. 



A human education making claim to completeness should culti- 
vate the imagination and poetic sentiment; should soften manners, 
as the literarium humaniores proverbially did of old; should widen 
the sympathies, dignify the character, inspire enthusiasm for noble 
action and chivalrous tenderness. — FRANCES COBBE. 



THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. 



Of all seas, none can be so dear to an Englishman as the stretch 
of water that separates England from France. It is a stage full of 
glorious historical memories; it is the busiest maritime highway in 
the world; its margin is enriched on the British side with spaces of 
exquisite scenery; and it is consecrated to sailors by the memory of 
the scores of mariners who have found a resting place upon its sands. 
When it opened broad under both bows we all stood gazing at it. 
Such a day, and such a ship, and such a sea would have made even 
a Chinaman poetical. — W.CLARK RUSSELL. 



THE SERMONS OF NATURE. 

I have read pretty widely, but philosophers never preached en- 
durance to me so well as the grand eternal calm of nature; no sermons 
humbled me like the sense of my own insignificance as I lay under 
the great cathedral of the sky, with its multitudinous worlds rolling 
on and on in their changeless course. — OUIDA. 



220 



A PRAYER. 

If I have faltered more or less 
In my great task of happiness, 
If I have moved among my race 
And shown no glorious morning face, 
If beams from happy human eyes 
Have moved me not; if morning skies, 
Books, and my friends, and summer rain 
Knocked at my sullen heart in vain; 
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take, 
And stab my spirit broad awake. 

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



SWEET ALICE BEN BOLT. 



They played that simple melody as it had probably never been 
played before — such passion, such pathos, such a tone! — and they 
turned it and twisted it, and went from one key to another, playing 
into each other's hands, Svengali taking the lead; and fugued and 
canoned and counterpointed and battledoored and shuttlecocked it, 
high and low, soft and loud, in minor, in pizzicato, and in sordino — 
and exhausted all its possibilities of beauty; till their susceptible 
audience of three was all but crazed with delight and wonder; and 
the masterful Ben Bolt, and his over-tender Alice, and his too sub- 
missive friend, and his old school-master so kind and true, and his 
long-dead school mates, and the rustic grey porch and the mill, 
and the slab of granite so grey. 

"And the dear little nook 
By the clear running brook," 

were all magnified into a strange, almost holy poetic dignity and 
splendor quite undreamed of by whoever wrote the word 3 and music 
of that unsophisticated little song, which has touched so many simple 
British hearts that don't know any better — and among them, once, 
that of the present scribe — long, long ago! And it would be impossi- 
ble to render in any words the deftness, the distinction, the grace, 
power, pathos c.nd passion with which this truly phenomenal artist 
executed — ***** such thrilling, vibrating, piercing tender- 
ness, now loud and full, a shrill scream of anguish, now soft as a 
whisper, a mere melodic breath, more human almost than the human 
voice itself. ***** 

He was conscious while it lasted that he saw deeper into the 
beauty, the sadness of things, the very heart of them, and their pa- 
thetic evanescence, as with a new, inner eye — even into eternity itself, 
beyond the veil — a vague cosmic vision that faded when the music was 
over, but left an unfading reminiscence of its having been, and a pas- 
sionate desire to express the like some day through the plastic me- 
dium of his own beautiful art. — De MAURIER. 



221 



DAY DREAMS. 

The children played in the cool morn air, 

At what they would like to be; 
They posed as lords and as ladies fair, 

And folks of a high degree; 
For life looks fair at the break of day, 
With little of work and much of play, 
And all is possible — so they say — 

When the heart, when the heart is young. 

The morning changed to the heat of noon, 

And then to the twilight chill; 
The children wearied of high life soon 

And quarreled, as children will; 
But they ran to their home in the fading light 
To sob out their wrongs ere they said good-night, 
And the mother, the mother made all things right, 

For their hearts, oh, their hearts were young. 

And we need not sorrow as years roll on, 

If the hopes that have ceased to be, 
But bring us when passion and youth are gone, 

To the truth of the Father's knee; 
Who husheth us up when our prayers are said, 
Forgetful of sorrow, in restful bed, 
To awaken again when the night has fled, 

When the heart will be always young. 

— Pall Mall Gazette. 



THE SEAS ARE QUIET. 



The seas are quiet when the winds are o'er; 
So calm are we when passions are no more; 
For then we know how vain it was to boast 
Of fleeting things so certain to be lost. 

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes 

Concealed that emptiness which age descries; 

The soul's dark cottage, battered and de- 
cayed, 

Lets in new light through chinks that time 
has made. 

Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become 
As they draw near to their eternal home. 
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they 

view, 
That stand upon the threshold of the new. 

— ANON. 




222 

PAIN. 

I am a mystery that walks the earth 

Since man began to be; 
Sorrow and Sin stood sponsors at my birth, 

And Terror christened me. 

More pitiless than Death, who gathereth 

His victims day by day, 
I doom man daily to desire for death, 

And still forbear to slay. 

More merciless than Time, I leave man youth 

And suck life's sweetness out; 
More cruel than Despair, I show man truth 

And leave him strength to doubt. 

I bind the freest in my subtle band; 

I blanch the boldest cheek; 
I hold the hearts of poets in my hand 

And wring them ere they speak. 

I walk in darkness over souls that bleed; 

I shape each as I go 
To something different; I drop the seed 

Whence grapes or thistles grow. 

No two that dream me dream the self -same face; 

No two name me alike, 
A horror without form, I fill all space — 

Across all tune I strike. 

p 
Man cries and cringes to mine unseen rod; 

Kings own my sovereignty; 
Seers may prove me as they prove a god — 

Yet none denieth me. — INDEPENDENT. 



THE DEATH OF PHRA. 

With a wavering 1 , endless fall the adze descended between my 
neck and shoulder, the black curtain of dissolution fell over the painted 
picture of the world, there was a noise of a thousand rivers tumbling 
into a bottomless cavern, and I expired. 

— EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. 



SCANDAL. 

The influence exercised by the voice of public scandal is a force 
which acts in opposition to the ordinary law of mechanics It is 
strongest, not by concentration, but by distribution. 

— WILKIE COLLINS. 



223 
THE INSUFFICIENCY OF SCIENCE. 

What shall it profit a man if he finds the origin of species and 
know exactly how earth worms and sun dews conduct themselves, if 
all the while he grow blind to the loveliness of Nature, deaf to music, 
insensible to poetry, and as unable to lift his soul to the Divine and 
Eternal as were the primeval apes from whom he has descended? 
Is this all that science can do for her devotees? Must he be shorn of 
the glory of humanity when he is ordained her priest? Does he find 
his loftiest faculties atrophied when he has become a machine for 
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts? 

There were many years of my life during which I regarded 
science with profound, though always distant, admiration. Grown 
old, I have come to think that many spirits in the hierarchy are 
loftier, purer; that the noblest study of mankind is Man, rather than 
rock or insect; and that, even at its best, Knowledge is immeasureably 
less precious than Goodness and Love. 

***** The scientific spirit of the age has doubtless per- 
formed prodigies in the realms of physical discovery. Its inventions 
have brought enormous contributions to the material well-being of 
man, and it has widened to a magnificent horizon the intellectual 
circle of his ideas. Yet, notwithstanding all its splendid achievements, 
if it foster only the lower mental faculties, while it paralyzes and 
atrophies the higher; if Reverence and Sympathy and Modesty dwin- 
dle in its shadow; if Art and Poetry shrink at its touch; if Morality 
be undermined and perverted by it; and if Religion perish at its ap- 
proach as a flower vanishes before the frost, then, I think, we must 
deny the truth of Sir James Paget's assertion, that — "nothing can ad- 
vance human prosperity so much as science." She has given us many 
precious things, but she takes away things more precious still. 

— Frances Cobbe, Eclectic Magazine, Sept., 188 8. 



THE SOLEMN GRANDEUR OF THE SEA. 

All imaginative minds are inevitably impressed by the solemn 
grandeur of the sea. Some shudder at its awful loneliness, its appa- 
rent illimitability, its air of brooding, ageless mystery in calm. Others 
are most affected by its unchainable energy, the terror of its gigantic 
billows, its immeasurable destructiveness in storms. Yet others, a 
less numerous class, ponder over its profundities of rayless gloom and 
uniform cold, where incalculable pressures bear upon all bodies, so 
that cylinders of massive steel are flattened into discs, and water per- 
colates through the masses of metal as though they were made of 
muslin. — FRANK BULLEN, "Idylls of the Sea." 



THE CAUTION OF AGE. 

So, in rebuke of the rashness of youth, spoke the caution of age. 
The negative view is notoriously the safe view, all the world over — and 
the caution of age is, as a necessary consequence, generally in the 
right. — WILKIE COLLINS. 



224 

THE DERELICT. 

There is no inanimate object that appeals so pathetically to the 
feelings as a deserted wreck tossing upon the high seas. Shorn of 
her beauty, her masts broken, her rigging trailing in confused heaps, 
surrounded by a great ocean that makes her desolation supreme, she 
resembles a dying creature; she seems to know her fate, and to be 
faintly struggling to save herself from vanishing in the fathomless 
grave that slowly sucks her down. 

***** I know not a more forlorn object, the wide world 
over, than an abandoned vessel encountered deep in the heart of the 
ocean solitude. In many ways may loneliness be represented, but 
there is no expression of it which equals, to my mind, the abandoned 
ship. Terrible is the silence of the decks. It is not the silence of the 
empty house that was yesterday full and clamorous with merry voices. 
It is such a silence as you meet with nowhere else, deepened to the 
meditative mind by sounds which would vex and break in upon and 
destroy all other silence. Yes, to my mind the abandoned ship at sea 
is the most perfect expression of human and inanimate loneliness. 

— W. Clark Russell. 



DEATH OF THE YOUNG. 

Oh! it is hard to take the lessons that such deaths will teach; 
but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and it is a 
mighty universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and 
young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit 
free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity and love, to 
walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals 
shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature 
comes. In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that 
defy. his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven. 

— Charles Dickens. 



FAITH AND DUTY. 
God made me; I will not apologize — 
The workmanship is His; if firm and fair, 
The credit of its strength I do not share; 
If it he rudely reared, and men despise 
Its quaint design, and deign to criticise, 
I make no murmur, for I have no care — 
I question not the Builder, here nor there, 
Believing still that all His ways are wise. 
This is the one sweet duty that I claim: 
To keep the palace chambers cool and pure 
And lily chaste within, while they endure, 
And all the many turret lights aflame; 
To pour love's wine, and hid the world take part, 
Around the purple altars of my heart. 

-JAMES NEWTON 3IATTHEWS. 



225 



NOT UNDERSTOOD. 

Not understood. We move along asunder. 

Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep 
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder 

Why life is life, and then we fall asleep 
Not understood 

Not understood. We gather false impressions, 
And hug them closer as the years go by, 

'Till virtues often seem to us transgressions, 
And thus men rise and fall, and live and die 
Not understood 

Not understood. Poor sovds with stunted vision 
Oft measure giants by their narrow guage; 

The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision, 

Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age, 
Not understood 

Not understood. The secret springs of action, 
Which lie beneath the surface and the show, 

Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction 

We judge our neighbors, and they often go 
Not understood 

Not understood. How trifles often change us! 

The thoughtless sentence or the fancied slight 
Destroy long years of friendship and estrange us, 

And on our souls there falls a freezing blight, 
Not understood 

Not understood. How many breasts are aching 
For lack of sympathy! All! day by day, 

How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking, 
How many noble spirits pass away 
Not understood 

O, God! that men would see a little clearer, 

Or judge less harshly when they cannot see; 
O, God! that men would draw a little nearer 
To one another! They'd be nearer Thee, 
And understood. 

—THOMAS BRACKEN. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer says: "Amid the mysteries, which become 
the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will re- 
main the one absolute certainty, that man is ever in the presence 
of an infinite and eternal Energy, from which all things proceed. 



226 



'LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT." 



Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling 
gloom, 

Lead Thou me on; 
The night is dark, and I am far from home, 

Lead Thou me on; 
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene; one step's enough for me. 

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 

Shouldst lead me on; 
I loved to choose and see my path; tout now 

Lead Thou me on; 
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, 
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past 
years. 

So long Thy power has tolessed me, sure it 
still 

Will lead me on 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 

The night is gone; 
And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost 
awhile! 

Meanwhile, along the narrow, rugged path 

Thyself have trod, 
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, 

Home to my God, 
To rest forever after earthly strife 
In the calm light of everlasting life. 

— CARDINAL NEWMAN. 



O LET ME NOW CONSIDER. 



O let me now consider and toe wise! 

Ere Summer goes, 
Drink in the sunlight of these cloudless 

skies, 
And learn toy heart the fragrance of this 

rose, 
The sweetness of the smile within your eyes, 
Ere Summer flies! 

Through Winter snows, 
My memories shall toe these perfect skies, 
The subtle fragrance of this crimson rose, 
And more than all, the smile that lights your 
eyes, 

Ere Summer goes. 
All! let me well consider and be wise. 

—PALL MALL MAGAZINE. 








227 
CHRISTIANITY UNASSAILABLE. 

Rosseau was a professed sceptic, yet even Rousseau, carried 
beyond himself, emphatically declared that the Gospel has characters 
of truthfulness so striking, so perfectly inimitable that its inventor 
would have been more astonishing than its hero. Niebuhr was the 
founder of the actuest and most independent school of historical 
criticism; yet Niebuhr said, "the man who does not hold Christ's early 
life, with all its miracles, to be as properly and really historical as any 
event in the sphere of history, I do not consider to be a Protestant 
Christian." To the blank atheism and credulous incredulity of those 
recent controversalists who deny to religion all objective truth, and 
are not ashamed to accuse the Evangelists of deliberate and conscious 
fraud, we need not reply. The dignity of controversy is lost if she 
condescend to enter the arena with the coarse gladiators of an offen- 
sive infidelity. Their mere existence serves but to illustrate the dan- 
gerous tendency of a scepticism which, beginning by the rejection of 
Christ, rapidly developed into the denial of a God, and upon the ruins 
of religion built a system which, while it promised liberty and illumina- 
tion, ended by preaching the Apotheosis' of selfishness and the gospel 
of Eternal Death. Nor again need we trouble ourselves with any of the 
exploded attacks upon Christianity, from Celsus and Porphyry, down 
to Woolston and Voltaire. It were lost labor to slay the slain. Only 
as we advance to the battlements and bulwarks of the yet untaken Sion, 
let us mark how the hills that girdle them are scattered with the ruined 
enginery of assaults unblessed by God. 

But from age to age God left not Himself without witness, and 
from age to age the most mighty apology for Christianity has been in 
the lives of her saints. These have averted from guilty nations the 
rain of fire. Other religions have withered into dishonered decrepi- 
tude; but she, with continuous rejuvenescence, has renewed her 
strength like the eagle; has run and not been weary, has walked and 
not been faint. REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



HELL-DOGS IN HUMAN FORM. 



Even so great an humanitarian and lover of mankind as Charles 
Dickens, was forced to the following painful conclusion: — 

"And I tell you this, my friends, that there are people (men and 
women both, unfortunately,) who have no good in them — none. That 
there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. 
That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the 
human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and 
who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way." 
—CHARLES DICKENS, in "Little Dorrit." 



GODS LAW THE LAW OF NATURE. 

That a dead man should come back to life you arrogantly declare 
to be inconceivable, — is it more conceivable how from the void of non- 
existence a living soul was drawn? — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



228 

THE BOY CHATTERTON. 

The widow was young — not more than one and twenty — when 
this child of tears was born. He was born with a thirst upon him for 
everything that was noble and stately and splendid. * * * * 

In the great silence of the ancient cathedral, here the little fellow, 
when missed from home, would be found seated by the tomb of Wil- 
liam Canynge * * * in the speechless desolation of childhood. 
* * * * of his impostures be it said that the extreme poverty to 
which one guinea is a matter of importance has something pathetic 
in it, which drops a merciful veil over those little meannesses which 
need produces, by none more bitterly felt than by those compelled to 
do them. * * * * 

With the timidity and modesty of genius he submitted his work 
and plans to the book-dealers, thinking perhaps that among these at 
least some one might understand, not knowing — poor destitute youth — 
that the tradesman-class everywhere are generally the one least sub- 
ject to any generous weakness of enthusiasm. And so, from the prom- 
ises of liars and the face of fools he wended his way back to his deso- 
late attic. They found him stretched face down upon the floor, the 
fatal vial clasped in his rigid Angers. The sleepless soul had perished 
in its pride. The great career which ought to have been was annulled 
forever. He has left us but rich tints of beauty and power, the scat- 
terings of a splendid and prodigal genius. — DANIEL WILSON. 



FREEDOM ! 

Freedom! twin sister of Virtue, thou brightest of all the spirits 
descended in the train of Religion from the throne of God; thou that 
leadest up man again to the glories of his early being; angel, from the 
circle of whose presence happiness spreads like the sunlight over the 
darkness of the land! at the waving of whose sceptre, knowledge, and 
peace, and fortitude, and wisdom, stoop upon the wing * * * when 
shall I see thy coming? When shall I hear thy summons upon the 
mountains of my country, and rejoice in the regeneration and glory 
of the sons of Judah? I have traversed nations; and as I set my foot 
upon their boundary, I have said, Freedom is not here! * * * 

In the midst of altars fuming to liberty, of harangues glowing 
with the most pompous protestations of scorn for servitude, of crowds 
inflated with the presumption that they disdained a master, the eye 
was insulted with the perpetual chain. 

* * * I saw the still more infallible signs, the down-cast vis- 
age, the form degraded at once by loathsome indolence and desperate 
poverty. * * * 

* * * Bitterer and deeper sign than them all, I pointed to the 
exile of exiles, the broken man, whom even the broken trample, of all 
the undone the most undone, my outcast brother in the blood of 
Abraham! — GEORGE CROLY, in "Salathiel." 



229 

OMAR KHAYYAM. 

Omar, dear Sultan of the Persian song, 
Familiar friend, whom I have loved so long, 
Whose volume made my pleasant resting place 
From this fantastic world of Right and Wrong. 

My youth lies buried in thy verses — Lo — 
I read, and as the haunted numbers flow, 
My memory turns in anguish to the Face 
That leaned o'er Omar's pages long ago. 

Alas for me, alas for all who weep 
And wonder at the Silence dark and deep 
That girdles round this little lamp in space, 
No wiser than when Omar fell asleep. 

Rest in thy grave beneath the crimson rain 
Of heart -desired Roses. Life is vain, 
And vain the trembling legends we may trace 
Upon the Open Book — that shuts again. 

—justin McCarthy. 



THE ETERNAL HILLS. 

Of all the sights that nature offers to the eye and the mind of 
man, mountains have always stirred my strongest feelings. * * * * 

There stands magnitude, giving the instant impression of power 
above man — grandeur that defies' decay — antiquity that tells of ages 
unnumbered — beauty that the touch of time only makes more beauti- 
ful — use exhaustless for the service of man — strength imperishable as 
the globe; — the monument of eternity, — the truest emblem of that 
ever living, unchangeable, irresistible Majesty, by whom and for whom 
all things were made! — GEORGE CROLT, in "Salathiel." 



HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN STATESMANSHIP. 

It thus happened that during the revolution and for the half 
century or more succeeding it, the representatives of the people and 
the rulers of the nation were almost universally chosen from the 
more prominent and distinguished families, or when exception was 
made in this it was in favor of conspicuous ability. The level of 
talent, or education as well as integrity was consequently far higher 
than at any time since, and probably unsurpassed in the annals of any 
nation. Certainly from the revolution down to 185 0, no contempo- 
raneous nation had such a galaxy of distinguished and brilliant men 
as had the United States. Politic^ s, as the word was later understood 
and known, did not exist. Money was no factor in public life. Ma- 
chine organization was practically unknown. Official life was sin- 
gularly pure, and even when distorted and degraded from its lofty 
purpose, the incentive was ambition or emulation but not greed for 
money. —A DIPLOMAT. 



230 

HOPE. 

Hope lives like a spark amid the very blackest embers of de- 
spondency. ***** q 0( j fc e praised, hope never dies in a 
man; indeed, I cannot conceive any surer sign of the immortality of 
man's spirit than that to him alone, of all created things, is given the 
power of triumphing over present trials and distress by the help of a 
buoyant impulse that he cannot account for nor even justify, and yet 
that fills him with elation and makes him strong and patient. 

— W. Clark Russell. 



THE BLIGHT OF MATERIALISM. 

Belief is extinct, there is only its pretense; prayer is no more, 
there is only a movement of the lips; true love is no more, desire has 
taken its place; the holy warfare of ideas is abandoned, the conflict 
is that of interests. The worship of great thoughts has passed away. 
That which is raises the tattered banner of some corpse-like traditions; 
that which would be hoists only the standard of physical wants, of 
material appetites. Materalism is the real danger of this age; but 
when theology has been converted into anthropology, which Feuer- 
bach calls "the task of modern times" then, there being no God left 
and no doctrine of Immortality, men "may continue illogically to 
utter the holy words progress and duty, but they have deprived the 
first of its basis, and the second of its source." — MANZINI. 



MIRACLES AND ETERNITY. 



If he admit that matter was not eternal, then he must also admit 
that something material had an immaterial cause. Here then are 
miracles, and miracles the most stupendous; breakages in the un- 
broken continuity; mutations in the imagined immutability. And if 
there have been one such intervention, why not — since obviously time 
is no element in the consideration — why not a myriad? If the chain 
of apparent causations began, why may it not end, why may it not be 
indefinitely modified? If there was an intermediate exercise of the 
divine power to create, why may there not have been to save? If God 
evoked the agency of laws to produce the stasis, why should it be 
deemed impossible for Him to supervene in remedy. of the apostasis? 
************** 

And there, in those infinite abysses; there, in that white radiance 
of an unstained eternity; there, with Him to whose vision the whole 
starlit sky is but as one white gleam in the intense inane; there where 
time and death are not; where the wings of thought sink powerless 
amid the Void; where, safe in His invisible keeping, rest the unnum- 
bered myriads of the dead; there, what is man? and what is a miracle, 
that we should deny the possibility thereof to God? Are we there in 
a region in which we can breathe so securely, walk so confidently, 
reason so audaciously, impose so confidently upon the Infinite, the 
Unseen, the Eternal Creator, the petty forms of our limited imbecility? 

— REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



231 



IF FLOWERS COULD SING. 



If flowers could sing, the poet's lays 
Would not be needed for their praise; 
They, of which men have sung so long, 
Would sing their own enchanting song. 
What fragrant accents oft would float 
From out the rose's velvet throat; 
What soulful solace would they bring — 
If flowers could sing? 

If flowers could sing, how would they bless 
The love that lips dare not confess; 
How would they voice the secret throe 
Of passionate and utter woe; 
How would they thrill the maiden fair 
Wlio wore them in her breast and hair; 
What tender tidings would they bring — 
If flowers could sing? 

If flowers could sing, the birds would die — 
What use were it for them to try 
By any means e'er to disclose 
The charms that render sweet the rose? 
They lovely colors have, 'tis true, 
But have they lovely fragrance, too? 
The bird would die from envy's sting — 
If flowers could sing. 

Indeed, the world would be too sweet, 
If carols sang the marguerite, 
In that fond hour when Twilight's ear 
Is waiting woodland hymns to hear. 
The violet her scent, ere long 
Would squander in the breath of song, 
And song would be too sweet a thing 
If flowers could sing. 

— B. D. GAW, Charlottesville, Va. 



THE MYSTERY OF CREATION. 



A universe self-made, and without a God, is at least as great a 
mystery as a universe with a God; in fact, the very attempt to con- 
ceive it in the mind produces a mental vertigo which is a bad omen for 
the practical success of Cosmic Emotion. 

P — GOLDWIN SMITH. 



232 



THE MISSISSIPPI. 



The wild-land, the wind-land, 
The vast-land, the North-land; 
The free-land, far inland 
That land is my birth land. 

The pine-land, the plain-land, 
The lake-land, the lone land, 
The heart of the main-land 
That land is my own land. 

The Sea is my Father, 
The Earth is my Mother, 
My glory I gather 
From one and the other. 

These towns and these cities, 
These homesteads fair, wrought in 
This wealth and these beauties, 
These have I begotten. 

My right hand the main of 
Sierra caresses; 
My left on the trail of 
The Cumberland presses. 

My head on the breast of 
Itasca I pillow; 
My feet touch the crest of the 
Mexican billow. 

The earthquake has rocked me, 
The ice-drift has locked me, 
The tempest has lashed me. 
The whirlwind has dashed me. 

My rivers rush to me 
From Sun-ward and Sun-ward, 
They feed and renew me, 
And so I march onward. 




Unresting, unsleeping, 
While blessings flow from me; 
Appointed bounds keeping 
While Heaven smiles on me. 

— J. H. BLOW 





233 
ATHEISM. 

Atheism may be regarded as the desperate shift of an ill-regu- 
lated mind, determined to rid itself of responsibility at the expense 
of all reason and argument. It is a negative proposition which no 
finite mind can enunciate without being guilty of the most astounding 
presumption. ***** 

He is a -fool who hazards the assertion, because it involves an 
amount of intelligence which no creature can possess, and the very 
attribute of omniscience, while He, in whom that attribute alone re- 
sides, is denied. ***** 

The luminaries of Heaven and the flowers of earth, the perpetual 
hills, and the wide sea where go the ships, the various animal tribes, 
the intelligent man, the noblest of all, proclaim the presence of the 
living God. — REV. THOMAS PEARSON. 



MARTIAL MAGNIFICENCE OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The tribunes were on horseback in front of the cohorts, putting 
them through that boundless variety of admirable movements, in 
which no soldiery were so dexterous as those of Rome. ***** 
No sound was heard but the measured tramp of the manoeuvre, and 
the voice of the tribunes. ***** Before me was the great 
machine, the resistless living energy that had leveled the strength of 
the most renowned nations. ***** Before me was at once 
the perfection of power and the perfection of discipline. All was calm, 
regular and grand. ***** The equipment of the officers 
was superb. The helmets, cuirasses, and swords, were frequently in- 
laid with precious stones, and the superior officers rode richly caparis- 
oned chargers purchased at an enormous price from the finest studs 
of Europe and Asia. ***** The most showy pageant of 
modern life was dull and colorless to the crowded magnificence of the 
Roman line. ***** The Romans always sought to fight 
pitched battles. They left the minor services to their allies; and 
haughtily reserved themselves for the master-strokes by which em- 
pires were lost or won. — GEORGE CROLY, in "Salathiel." 



A DAY IN SPRING. 



The day was beautiful, one of those spring days when May sud- 
denly pours forth all its beauty, and when nature seems to have no 
thought but to rejoice and be happy. Amidst the many murmurs from 
forest and village, from the sea and the air, a sound of cooing birds 
could be distinguished. The first butterflies of the season were rest- 
ing on the early roses. Everything in nature seemed new — the grass, 
the mosses, the leaves, the perfumes, the rays of light. The pebbles 
seemed bathed in coolness. ***** The ear seemed to catch 
the sound of kisses sent from invisible lips. ***** Glitter- 
ing things glittered more than ever. There was a hymn in the flowers, 
and a radiance in the sounds of the air. — VICTOR HUGO. 



234 

THE WORLD'S OPINION. 

For its opinion I do not care a cup of water; "a, bubble of this 
foam would weigh as heavy with me as the rambling, giddy, vulgar 
judgment of a world in which the first of talents is scoundrelism. I 
never knew a man fail, who brought to market prostitution of mind 
enough to make him a tool; vice enough to despise everything but 
gain; and cunning enough to keep himself out of the. hands of the 
magistrate, till opulence enabled him to corrupt the law or authority 
to defy it. — GEORGE CROLY in "Salathiel." 



THE ICE ISLAND. 

At midnight on this day we sighted a large ice-island, pale as 
alabaster under the moon, and shortened canvas to approach it. We 
hove to till the grey of dawn, when the rising sun gave us a magnificent 
picture of a floating island of ice stretching for miles over our star- 
board bow. Its lofty mountains bristled with pinnacles, a very prin- 
cipality of turrets and castellated eminences, majestic in solitude. A 
closer approach led us past gigantic table-topped icebergs, giant 
fragments detached from the main body, veritable floating mountains 
against whose gaunt sides the awful billows broke with deafening 
clangour, flinging their hissing fragments hundreds' of feet into the sky. 

The direction of the wind which had now risen to half a gale en- 
abled us to sail in a proximity that under other circumstances would 
have invited almost certain disaster. The seas — blue ridges with a 
mile-long head of foam — had grown into living coils as high and men- 
acing as the combers which the westerly gales of the Pacific heave in 
thunder on the shores of that mighty deep. The fabric raged past 
with a kind of shrieking music, filling the air as though some giant 
harp were edging the blast with the resonance of fifty wind-strung 
wires. The frosty brilliancy of the brine seemed to emphasize the bit- 
ter cold of the wind. As the bark would sweep to the summit of some 
prodigious sea, thus widening the prospect, there, — stretching for miles 
and miles, — were icebergs, which to the farther sight looked to lie so 
close that the picture was that of a compacted coast of alabaster, 
broken with pinnacles and acclivities of a thousand shapes, curving 
in places as though in bays, the whole on either hand dying out in 
films of white, whilst over the bows, over the stern, too, was'ice, plen- 
tiful as the breasts of the canvas of a vast fleet, and through the South- 
ern sky, low down, ran a long, glinting line or gleam as though a 
continent of ice was reflected in its face. A magnificent but a terrible 
sight. 

— Adapted from W. CLARK RUSSELL and FRANK BULLEN. 



THE COMMON MAN. 

There is much to discourage in numan history, in the facts of 
human life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very com- 
mon. He is ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All 
public affairs bear the stamp of his weakness. 

— DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



235 

THE BIBLE. 

What a Book! Vast and wide as the world, rooted in the abysses 
of creation, and towering up beyond the blue secrets of Heaven. 
Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment, birth and death, the whole 
drama of humanity, are all in this Book. 

— COULSON KERNAHAN. 



THE OPIUM DREAM. 



The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in 
dreams — a music of preparation and of awakening suspense; a music 
like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like that, gave 
the feeling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the 
tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty 
day — a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering 
some mysterious eclipse, and laboring in some extremity. Somewhere, 
I knew not where, — somehow, I knew not how, — by some beings, I 
knew not whom, — a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, — was 
evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sym- 
pathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, 
its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams 
(where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement), 
had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the 
power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the 
power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the op- 
pression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever plummet sounded," 
I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some 
greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the 
sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden 
alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives. 
I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and 
lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all 
was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the 
world to me, and but a moment allowed — and clasped hands, and 
heart-breaking partings, and then — everlasting farewells! and with 
a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother 
uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated — 
everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again, reverberated — ever- 
lasting farewells! 

And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud — "I will sleep no more!" 

-De QUINCEY. 



THE COURTESAN. 



Perfectly modest in her manner, possessed to perfection of the 
graceful restraints and refinements of a lady, she had all the allure- 
ments that feast the eye, all the siren, invitations that seduce the sense, 
a subtile suggestiveness in her silence, and a sexual sorcery in her 
smile. — WILKIE COLLINS. 



236 

THE CLIMAX OF MUSIC. 

Then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue The golden 
tubes of the organ, which as yet had but muttered at intervals — glean- 
ing among clouds and surges of incense — threw up, as from fountains 
unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. 

— De QUINCEY. 



THE SPELL OF MOONLIGHT. 

I have been dreaming a long while in the moonlight, which floods 
my room with a radiance, full of vague mystery. The state of mind 
induced in us by this fantastic light is itself so dim and ghost-like 
that analysis loses its way in it, and arrives at nothing articulate. It 
is something indefinite and intangible, like the noise of waves which 
is made up of a thousand fused and mingled sounds. It is the rever- 
beration of the unsatisfied desires of the soul, of all the stifled sorrows 
of the heart, mingling in a vague, sonorous whole, and dying away 
in cloudy murmurs. All those imperceptible regrets, which never 
individually reach the consciousness, accumulate at last into a defi- 
nite result; they become the voice of a feeling of emptiness and aspira- 
tion; their tone is melancholy itself. In youth the tone of these 
Aeolian vibrations of the heart is all hope — a proof that these thou- 
sands of indistinguishable accents make up indeed the fundamental 
note of our being, and reveal the tone of our whole situation. Tell 
me what you feel in your solitary room when the full moon is shin- 
ing in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how 
old you are, and I shall know if you are happy. 

— HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL. 



WINE AND OPIUM CONTRASTED. 

Wine disorders the mental faculties; opium, on the contrary, if 
taken in the proper manner, introduces among them the most ex- 
quisite order, legislation and harmony. Wine unsettles and clouds the 
judgment; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equi- 
poise to all the faculties, active or passive. The opium eater feels that 
the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affec- 
tions are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light 
of the majestic intellect. — De QUINCEY. 



Virtue is not always its own reward, and the way that leads to 
reformation is remarkably ill-lighted for so respectable a thorough- 
fare. — WILKIE COLLINS. 



THE CANT OF CRITICISM. 

Grant me patience, Good Heavens! Of all the cants that are 
canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrisy may be 
the worst, yet the cant of criticism is the most tormenting. I would 
go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man who willingly gives 
up the reins of his imagination into the hands of his author; is pleased 
he knows not why — nor cares not wherefore. — -STERNE. 



237 
WHEX WILD OATS ARE SOWN. 

You wait, boy, till you're married, and the house begins to fill, 
and you'll tuck in your tail, and sing small, and take risks, and see 
accidents don't happen, and grow grey hairs like the rest of us. 

— CUTLIFFE HYXE. 



STATELY ASPECT OF AUTUMX. 



Then the woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened moun- 
tains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Au- 
tumn's mellow hand was on them, as they owned already, touched with 
gold, and red, and olive; and their joy toward the sun was less to a 
bridegroom than a father. 

So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning when crag 
and chasm shall be no more, neither hill nor valley, nor great un- 
vintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happi- 
ness envy glory, but all things shall arise and shine in the light of a 
Father's countenance, because itself is risen. 

— BLACKMORE. 



DOES FOLLY LLVE OX EARTH ALOXE? 

There, boy, said I, Will your wisdom tell me the story of that star? 
Are its people as mad as we? Is there ambition on one side and folly 
on the other? Are its great men the prey of a populace, and their 
populace the tools and the fools of their great men? Have they 
orators to inflame their passions; lawyers to beggar them in the pur- 
suit of justice; traders, to cheat them; heroes to give them laurels 
and vanity at the price of blood, hunger, and misery: and philosophers 
to be the worst plagues among them — in the midst of perpetual wond- 
ers and baffled by every pebble under their feet, insensible to their 
own ignorance; and with every attribute and voice of nature full of 
worship, wrapping themselves in the robe of the scorner, and refusing 
their homage to a God? — GEORGE CROLY. 



THE POLAR REGIOXS. 

These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habitable world for 
the piercing cold shivers the stones, splits the trees, and causes the 
earth to burst asunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles, 
seems incapable of enduring this solitude of frost and tempest, of 
famine and death. Solemn silence reigns. 

— EUGEXE SUE. 



BELIEF IX MIRACLES LOGICAL. 

Nature has its mysteries; truth or judgment might be commis- 
sioned from sources strange to human perceptions. To give way to 
the workings of a sickly imagination, may characterize the vulgar, the 
idle and the weak; but to admit the power of Heaven to suspend its 
own laws for its own purposes, is among the soundest conclusions of 
the pious and the wise. — GEORGE CROLY. 



238 

THE DEFENSE OF FAITH AND RELIGION. 

It is against whole literatures; it is against whole philosophies; 
it is against the vague doubts of eminent thinkers; it is against the 
innumerable sneers, the repeated assumptions, the ever-varying criti- 
cisms of a powerful and intellectual press. 

— REV. F. W. FARRAR. , 



TERROR. 

Like that which sometimes takes possession of the mind in 
dreams — when one feels one's self sleeping alone, utterly divided 
from all call or hearing of friends, doors open that should be shut, 
or unlocked that should be triply secured, the very walls gone, bar- 
riers swallowed up by unknown abysses, nothing around one but 
frail curtains, and a world of illimitable night, whisperings at a 
distance, correspondence going on between darkness and darkness, 
like one deep calling to another, and the dreamer's own heart the 
center from which the network of this unimaginable chaos radiates, 
by means of which the blank privations of silence and darkness be- 
come powers the most positive and awful. 

-DE QUINCEY 



LOVESS WAY. 

Xot more natural is it for the hart to pant for the water brook, 
for the plant to seek the light ,for water to seek its level, for the bird 
to seek its mate, for the bee to sip the nectar of the flower, for the 
day to succeed the night, for the tide to ebb and flow, for the stars 
to twinkle, for the sun to shine, for the bud to blossom, for the leaves 
to fall — than it is for me to love thee! 

— ROBERT LOUIS STEPHENSON. 



THE SONG OF TRILBY. 



A string of perfect gems * * * * strung together on a loose 
golden thread. Waves of sweet and tender laughter, the very heart 
and essence of innocent, high-spirited girlhood, alive to all that is 
simple and elementary in nature — the freshness of the morning, the 
ripple of the stream, the click of the mill, the lisp of the wind in the 
trees, the song of the lark in the cloudless skies — the sun and the dew, 
the scent of early flowers and summer woods and meadows — the sight 
of birds and bees and butterflies and frolicsome young animals at 
play — all the sights and scents and sounds that are the birthright of 
happy children, happy savages in favored climes — things within the 
remembrance and reach of most of us! All this, the memory and feel 
of it, are in Trilby's voice as she warbles that long, smooth, lilting, 
dancing laugh, that wondrous song without words. 

— GEORGE De MAURIER. 




"Soft eyes— that soothe my soul's unrest." — Page 157 



240 

THE PHILOSOPHER'S HUMANITY. 

At no time of my life have I been a person to hold myself pol- 
luted by the touch or approach of any creature that wore a human 
shape. For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor 
limitary creature calling himself a man of the world, and filled with 
narrow and self-regarding - prejudices of birth, means, and education, 
but should look upon himself as a catholic creature, and as standing 
in equal relation to high and low, to educated and uneducated, to the 
guilty and the innocent. — DE QUINCEY. 



MODESTY. 

Modesty is always the sign and safeguard of a mystery. It is ex- 
plained by its contrary — profanation. Shyness or modesty is, in truth, 
the half-conscious sense of a secret of nature or of the soul too inti- 
mately individual to be given or surrendered. It is exchanged. To 
surrender what is most profound and mysterious in one's being and 
personality at any price less than that of absolute reciprocity is pro- 
fanation. —HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL. 



EACH IN HIS OWN PLACE. 



"To see things as they really are," is the purpose of the philosophy 
of pessimism in the hands of its worthiest exponents. But to know 
what is, and that alone, even were such knowledge possible, is not to 
know the truth. The higher wisdom seeks for the forces at work to 
produce that which now is. The present time is the meeting time of 
forces; the present fact their temporary product. To the philosophy 
of evolution, "every meanest day is the conflux of two eternities." 
Each meanest fact is the product of the world-forces that lie behind 
it. Each meanest man the resultant of the vast powers alive in human 
nature, struggling since life began. * * * * In the more hopeful 
view of evolution the child exists for its possibilities. The huge 
forces within us have thrown it to the surface of time. * * * * 
"With this thought is sure to come, in some degree, the certainty that 
the heart of the universe is sound, that though there be many of us 
in the world each must have his place, and each at last "be somehow 
needful to infinity." We can thus see that each least creature has 
its need for being. — DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



WAYFARERS IN LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 

And thus ever, by day and night, under the sun and under the 
stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, 
journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so 
strangely — to meet, and to act and re-act on one another, move we 
restless travelers through the pilgrimage of life. 

—CHARLES DICKENS, in "Little Dorrit." 



241 
THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE. 

Four thousand singers and minstrels', with the harp, the trumpet, 
and all the richest instruments of a land, whose native genius was 
music, and whose climate and landscape led men instinctively to 
delight in the charm of sound, chanted the inspired songs of our 
warrior king, and filled up the pauses' of prayer with harmonies that 
transported the spirit beyond the cares and passions of a troubled 
world. — GEORGE CROLY. 



THE TITAN TRIAD OF GUATEMALA. 

Six hours' sail from Champerico brings us to a night's anchorage 
in the roadstead of San Jose de Guatemala, and to an unforgetable 
sight. Forty miles east the Volcan de Agua and the Volcan de Fuego 
front us, so far up the sky, so sublimated in the moonlight, as to seem 
the very ghosts of peaks. ***** 

Guatemala, the capital, is on the eastward slope of Agua, at an 
elevation of 48 5 5 feet, and Acatenango and Fuego almost overhang 
it from the north. Fuego has an altitude of 12,603 feet, and is still 
alive. Agua is 12,334 feet tall, and Acatenango 12,890. In figures this 
is not overpowering; but our taller Pike and Sierra Blanca seem 
babies by contrast. Either is hardly more than 8000 above any point 
from which it can be seen. Even great Popocatepetl has but 11,000 
feet the better of the high plateau which bears and commands it. But 
the nearly 13,000 feet of the giant trinity now before us is net — from 
the first foot to the last of those not easily realized digits — and the 
figure they cut in the sky is unaccustomed and awesome. Of the far 
greater peaks of the upper Andes, not one is seen from the sea at 
anything like so short range — if ever from the sea at all — and the 
traveler may safely reckon that between Alaska and Ecuador he will 
enter no other presence so overtopping as that of the titan triad of 
Guatemala. 

— CHARLES F. LUMMIS, Harper's Magazine, Feb., 1895. 



PETTY TYRANNY INTOLERABLE. 

Power and genius in the tyrant offer the consolation, that if the 
chain have galled us, it has been bound by a hand made for supremacy. 
The last misery of the slave is to have been bound by a creature even 
more comtemptible than himself; to have given to folly the homage 
due to talent; to have stooped before meanness, and trembled under 
the frown of the feeble. — GEORGE CROLY. 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 

It is two thousand years to Nero, ancient history indeed to we of 
this twentieth century; yet there will come a time in the history of 
this planet, when a civilization deep set in the womb of futurity will 
look back and see — in the immense retrospect, through the dwindling 
ages, — these two eras as almost contemporaneous. 

—GEORGE F. VIETT. 



242 

HIDE THOU THIS CLAY. 



Lord of the living, when my race is run, 
Will that I pass beneath the risen sun; 
Suffer my sight to dim upon some scene 
Of Thy good green. 

Let my last pillow be the earth I love; 
With fair infinity of blue above; 
And fleeting, purple shadow of a cloud 
My only shroud. 

A little lark, above the Morning Star, 
Shall shrill the tidings of my end afar; 
The muffled music of a lone sheep -bell 
Shall be my knell. 

And where stone heroes trod the moor of old, 
Where bygone wolf howled round a granite 

fold, 
Hide Thou, beneath the heather's new-born 
light, 

My endless night. 

— EDEN PHILLPOTTS, 
in London Spectator 




THE GREATER MIRACLE. 

The existence of a God assumed, the law of the Divine nature is 
as much a law of nature as the law which it suspends. This is a com- 
plete answer to the objection of Spinoza. — MOZLEY. 



FAITH UNDYING. 



All things' in the affairs of men have their ebbs and flows. That 
great tide of spiritualism which has so long watered the earth and 
blessed it has for a season been receding. Bare are many portions of 
its ancient bed; parched are many lands which once drank of its 
waters. But let no man dream that it shall be dried up, for its sources 
are divine. However changed its course by the moral and spiritual 
earthquakes that shake the world, it will flow on through the ages, 
and acquire, if not the calm of its early mountainous shore, yet a 
solemn peace of its own, as it grows, as the towns on its marge fling 
their wavering lights on a wider, statelier stream; as the banks fade 
dimmer away, as the stars come out, and the night winds bring up 
the stream murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. — W. S. LILLY. 



243 
IiAST STAND OF THE VIKING. 

Now he stood with his back to his ship like some fierce beautiful 
thing of the sea. His plaited brass and steel cuirass was hacked and 
dinted, his white linen hung- in shreds about him; his arms were bare 
and blood ran down them, while his long fair hair lifted to the salt 
wind that was coming in freshly with the tide, and the sun shone 
on his cold blue eyes, and his polished harness, and his tall and comely 
proportions, standing out there knee keep in the surf against the dark 
side of his high-sterned stranded vessel — still glaring upon the wide 
circle of his enemies with death and defiance struggling for mastery 
in his eyes in a way wondrous to behold. ***** 

Wonderful and dreadful! that all those tinselled puppets of his- 
tory — those throbbing epitomes of passion and god-like hopes, should 
have budded, and decayed, and passed out into the void. * * * * 

Dreadful, quaint, abominable! to think that all these flickering 
human things have paced across the sunny white screen of life and 
utterly disappeared. 

— EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. 



PEACE ON EARTH." 



The practical and universal adoption, for one generation, of the 
principles of Christ's life, and of His teaching, say, in the Sermon on 
the Mount alone, would make earth a heavenly spot for all succeed- 
ing generations* of men. In propotion as men become more Chris- 
tian they become more human — less brutal, less cruel, less cowardly, 
gentler with others, sterner with themselves, less factious, less bigoted, 
less scornful, less 1 given to exasperating epithets, to bitter thoughts, 
to bitter words, to devouring lusts, to vindictive reprisals, to secret 
impurities. — REV. HENRY FOOTMAN, M. A. 



INSANITY. 

What is insanity but a mere vivid and terrible dream? It has 
the dream-like tumult of events, the rapidity of transit, the quick 
invention, the utter disregard of place and time. The difference lies 
in the sterner intensity. The mad man is awake; and the open eye 
administers a horrid reality to the fantastic vision. The vigour of 
the senses gives a living and resistless strength to the vagueness of 
the fancy; it compels together the fleeting mists of the mind and 
embodies and inspirits them into shapes of deadly power. 

— GEORGE CROLY. 



CHRISTIANITY OR NOTHING. 



I desire that, in judging of Christianity, it may be remembered 
that the question lies between this religion and none; for, if the Chris- 
tian religion be not credible, no one with whom we have to do will 
support the pretentions of any other. 

— REV. HENRY FOOTMAN, M. A. 



244 

THE SCEPTICS T>UVY. 

Is it reasonable, then, to demand that the Divine existence shall 
be proved by a purely intellectual process, and the fact of a future life 
reduced to a syllogism? 

As an inquirer in the highest department of human investigation, 
the Sceptic does himself grave injustice bv neglecting any of his 
powers, or by shutting up in durance any of those sentinel faculties' 
which should keep keenest outlook on the watch-tower of life. 

Surely in this supreme concern no capacity should be idle, no 
sense asleep; but rather with loins girt, and every energy alert, the 
honest and earnest Sceptic should seek after God, if haply he may 
find Him, and with steepness vigil he should watch for signs of a dawn 
that would make eternal morning in his sky. 

— NEVIS'JN LORAINE. 



UNJUST CENSURE. 
"It costs no labor, needs' no intellect, to pronounce the words, 
foolish, dull, stupid, odious, etc. The weakest or most uncultivated 
mind may therefore gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all at 
once, by a prompt application of vague and condemnatory words, 
where a wise and liberal man would not feel himself warranted to 

pronounce without the most deliberate consideration Thus 

excellent performances in the department of thinking or action, might 
be consigned to contempt, if there were no better judges than the 
authority of those who could not so much as understand them. A man 
who wishes some decency and sense to prevail in the circulation of 
opinions, will do well, when he hears these decisions of ignorant arro- 
gance, to call for a precise explication of the manner in which the 
terms of the verdict apply to the subject." 

—JOHN FOSTER. 



IMAGINATION. 

Imagination, that strangest and most imperious of our faculties, 
whose soarings from earth to heaven may be among indications' of 
power beyond the grave, disdains to linger on the realities of our 

being Its fabrications of adventure, at once of the most regular 

consecutiveness, and with wildest originality, are all characterized 
by the same spontananeous swiftness of change. 

A miraculous foresight gifted me with the fearful privilege of 
looking into the most remote futurity. Ages on ages unfolded them- 
selves, with all their wonders, to tantalize me. I saw worlds awake 
from chaos, and return to it in flood and flame. I saw systems swept 
away like the sand.' The universe withered with years, and rolled up 
like a parchment scroll. — GEORGE CROLY. 



PRAYER NOT VAIN. 

A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may 
be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some 
gracious visitation. — ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 



245 

AMONG THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 

There was always a sufficiently arduous routine of necessary 
duties to perform, preventing 1 us from degenerating- into mere lotus- 
eaters in that delicious afternoon land, amid scenes of delight hardly 
to be imagined by the cramped mind of the town dweller; softly gliding 
over the calm azure depths, bathed in golden sun-light, gazing dreamiy 
down at the indescribable beauties, islands, sea and air all shimmer- 
ing in an enchanted haze, and silence scarcely broken — though all 
these joys have been lost to time, and I "in populous city pent" endure 
the fading years, I would not barter the memory of them for more 
than I can say, so sweet it is to me. 

— FRANK BULLEN, "Cruise of the Cachalot." 



THE CHRISTIAN-BORN ATHEISM. 

The Atheism of this age has a depth which is its own only because 
it has sent its line down into that abyss of which Christianity with- 
draws, in part, the veil. This Atheism displays a grandeur which is 
not its own, but which it assumes in rearing its head, and looking up- 
ward, beneath the vault of that Infinitude to which it has gained ad- 
mittance by favour of the Gospel. This Atheism shows, and actually 
possesses, a sensibility, and it has a consciousness of the true, the beau- 
tiful, and the good, which it owes, conspicuously and entirely, to the 
books and to the systems which it denounces. These tones of tender- 
ness and of purity in which it has learned to utter itself — if we catch 
them at a distance, so as to lose what in them is articulate, might be 
mistaken for the silver sounds of God's mercy to man. 

The Atheism which startles us by our fireside, which sits with us 
in pews, which flames out in our literature, which is the Apollo of the 
weekly, monthly, and quarterly Press, has not merely learned its rhet- 
oric in the evangelic school, and thence stolen its phrases, but it has 
there got inspiration from a Theology of which itself is only the neces- 
sary antithesis. Evoke now from Hades a genuine Atheist of the classic 
Pagan Church, and bring him within hearing of a modern Atheistic 
lecture, and the very terms of the discourse would be unintelligible to 
him. You must baptize him before you can convince him that you 
are his disciples, or that he is indeed one of yourselves. The Creed in 
which he lived and died was a marble paradox, and you have a great 
work to do in him before he can be made to listen to a breathing 
sophistry, with its Christianized heart, and its soul of fire. An Athe- 
istic philosophy which is indeed earthborn, and which steams up from 
the dead levels of the Pagan world, is a miasma, in breathing which 
nations are overcome with drowsiness — intellectual and moral, and 
walk about dreaming, thousands of years, unchanged. But a Christian- 
born Atheistic philosophy comes over a Christian land, at periods, as 
a cloud, riding upon the winds — it mutters blasphemies — it smites the 
earth with its forked scourge, and it moves away. 

—ISAAC TAYLOR. 



246 

THE OLD CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN. 

LINES — Suggested by gazing upon its ruins and the decayed tombs in 

the immediate vicinity. 
Old monument of ages past, lone champion hoar and grey, 
Thy aged walls are falling fast to ruin and decay; 
A stranger gazes on thee now with eyes bedewed with tears, 
And marks, upon thy aged brow, the work of bygone years. 

Thou standest not as thou hast stood in days long past and gone, 
Ere yet the storms of passing years had swept above thy form; 
Ere yet the ivy vine had learned to bind thy shattered crest, 
Or swallow-bird to build on thee her frail and lonely nest. 

Long years have rolled above thee since, amid the wildwood glen, 
Thy ancient form was reared, in times that tried the souls of men; 
And sire, and son, and savage foe, since then have passed away: — 
But thou, though ruined, standest now, majestic in decay. 

And where are now the few who reared thy form in other days, 
And made thy humble aisles to ring with pealing notes of praise? 
I ask, ye woods and hills around, I ask ye, where are they? 
And wood and hill give back the sound, "All, all have passed away." 

And thou, old temple of the Cross, art standing all forlorn, 
Here, in thy deathlike solitude, with none thy fall to mourn; 
The noble James is rolling by, the music of whose surge, 
When blended with the night-bird's cry, must be thy funeral dirge. 

Farewell, old timeworn sentinel, lone watcher of the dead, 
And you, ye blooming wild-flowers, that wave above each head; 
Farewell! ye all may live to breast the storms of many a day, 
Yet know that, with the things of earth, ye too must pass away. 

— S. S. DAWES, Norfolk, Va. 



BRITAIN'S FAR-FLUNG BATTLE LINE. 

"On what shore has not the prow of your ships dashed? What 
land is there with a name and a people where your banner has not 
led your soldiers? And when the great resurrection reveille shall 
sound, it will muster British soldiers from every clime and people 
under the whole heaven." — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



"BARREN SANDS IMBIBE THE SHOWER." 

A life of mere amusement is dishonorable and disgraceful; that 
"to consume much and to produce little, to sit down at the feast of life, 
and to depart without paying the reckoning," is a sin too deeply- 
seated to be successfully gilded over by the mere profession of Chris- 
tian faith. — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



247 







ATHEISM SHATTERED. 

In the following lines the theory of atheism is absolutely and 
finally disposed of; they embody the greatest rebuke to the atheist and 
the most withering refutation of his creed that has ever been penned. 

Speaking of the presumption of the atheist, the writer goes on to 
say, — "He must needs have traversed not only every part of 'this dim 
spot which men call earth,' but he must have wandered from star to 
star, made himself thoroughly acquainted with all worlds, have 
searched into the records of all ages, and have found throughout all 
space and all time no evidence of design, before an individual could 
be entitled to say that the Universe is without a God." 

The idea is forcibly expressed by John Foster, and eloquently 
illustrated by Dr. Chalmers — "The wonder then turns," says the 
original-minded author of the Essays, "on the great process by which 
a man could grow to the immense intelligence which can know that 
there is no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this 

attainment! This intelligence involves the very attributes of Di- 

vinity, while a God is denied! for unless this man is omnipresent, un- 
less he is at this moment in every place in the Universe, he cannot 



248 

know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by 
which even he would be overpowered. 

If he does not know absolutely every agent in the Universe, the 
one that he does not know — may be God. If he himself is not the 

chief agent in the "Universe, and does not know what is so, that which 
is so — may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the 

propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants' 
may be, — that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign 

the cause of all that he perceives to exist, — that cause may be a God. 
If he does not know everything that has been done in the immeasure- 
able ages of the past, some things may have been done by a God. 

Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all other Di- 
vine existence by being Deity himself, he cannot know that the Being 
whose existence he rejects, does not exist. BUT HE MUST KNOW 

THAT HE DOES NOT EXIST, else he deserves "equal contempt and 
compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection 
and acts accordingly." 

Atheism is thus shown, at the very outset, to be illogical and to 
rest upon a monstrous assumption, so that we are prepared to welcome 
whatever evidences offer themselves for the truth of the proposition — 
that there is a God. 

— From "Infidelity," by REV. THOMAS PEARSON. 



COULD WE BUT KNOW! 



Could we but know 
The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, 

Where lie those happier hills and meadows low, — 
All, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil, 

Aught of that country could we surely know, 
Who would not go? 

Might we but hear 
The hovering angel's high imagined chorus, 

Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear 
One radiant vista of the realm before us, — 
With one rapt moment given to see and hear, 
All, who would fear? 

Were we quite sure 
To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, 
Or there by some celestial stream as pure, 
To gaze in eyes that here were love-lit only, — 
This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure, 
Who would endure? 

— UNIDENTIFIED. 



249 
MY SOUL. 



About the year 18 88 litterateurs were stirred by the announcement 
of the discovery of a new poem signed by E. A. Poe and bearing, both 
in the handwriting and composition, all the characteristics of that 
distinguished poet. It was given wide circulation through the press, 
and its authenticity generally accepted until a searching investigation 
by handwriting experts disclosed that an imposture had been at- 
tempted. R. H. Laughlin, a student of the University of Virginia, 
and at the time editor of the College Annual, claimed to have dis- 
covered the poem written in the back of an old Rollin's History, a 
work which it was said had not been removed from its resting place 
since Poe's time. When confronted with the evidences of spurious- 
ness, the feigned discoverer admitted authorship of the verses, frankly 
stating that a "profitable sensation" had been the object of his clever 
imitation. The Professor of Literature of the University remarked that 
a man so gifted should keep on writing, and take all the credit that 
belonged to him. 

Sailing- over seas abysmal 

From a world of shame, 
Once a vessel, strange and. dismal — 

Phantom vessel — came 
Toward a fairy isle and olden, 
Where ill-angels unbeholden 
Tenanted Fate's ghostly golden 

Fane of Doom and Fame. 

Fane of Fame by seraphs builded 

In the days of yore, 
There (a temple chased and gilded) 

From the earthly shore 
Up to Heaven rose it gleaming 
All with Hope and Beauty beaming — 
(Like a dream of Aidenn seeming 

— Had it seemed no more.) 

But the pilot steering 

For that temple bright, 
Ever found the island veering 

From his aching sight, 
Till, from nightly shores appalling 
Came the solemn darkness falling, 
In its hungry clasp enthralling, 

Land and sea and light! 



250 



Then the vessel sinking, lifting 

Over hopes sublime 
(Perished hope!) came drifting, drifting — 

To a wild, weird clime; 
There, a visitor undaunted 
In that desert land enchanted, 
Still is seen the vessel haunted 

Out of Space and Time. 

— R. H. LAUGHLIN. 




TELL ME SO. 



If you love me, tell me so, 
Wait not till the summer glow 
Fades in autumn's changeful light, 
Amber clouds and purple night; 
AVait not till the winter hours 
Heap with snowdrifts all the flowers, 
Till the tide of life runs low — 
If you love me, tell me so. 




If you love me, tell me so, 

While the river's dreamy flow 

Holds the love-enchanted hours, 

Steeped in music, crowned with flowers; 

Ere the summer's vibrant days 

Vanish in the opal haze; 

Ere is hushed the music flow — 

If you love me, tell me so. 

If you love me, tell me so, 
Let me hear the sweet words low! 
Let me now, while life is fair, 
Feel your kisses on my hair; 
While in womanhood's first bloom, 
Ere shall come dark days of gloom, 
In the first fresh dawning glow — 
If you love me, tell me so. 

— E. C. STEDMAN. 



GOD OVER ALL. 

Dear Life! Sweet Moment! Gracious Opportunity! Brief jour- 
ney so well worth the taking! Gentle exile so well worth enduring! 
Thy bitterest sorrows 1 are but blessings in disguise, thy sharpest pains 
are brought upon us by ourselves, and even these are turned to warn- 
ings for our guidance, while above us, through us, and around us radi- 
ates the Supreme Love, unalterably tender. 

—MARIE CORELLI. 



251 
SHE'S UP THERE— OLD GLORY! 



She's up there — Old Glory — 

Whence lightnings are sped, 
She dazzles the nations 

With ripples of red; 
And she'll wave for us living 

Or droop o'er us dead — 
She's the Flag of our country forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — 

How bright the stars stream! 
And the stripes like red signals 

Of Liberty gleam! 
And we dare for her living — 

Or dream the last dream 
'Neath the Flag of our country forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — 

No tyrant-dealt scars, 
Nor blur on her brightness; 

No stain on her stars! 
The brave blood of heroes 

Hath crimsoned her bars! 
She's the Flag of our country forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — 

In splendor on high, 
The proudest of banners 

That kiss the blue sky: 
And the legions beneath her 

Will do and will die 
To keep her a-waving forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — 

The hope of the ages, 
The pole-star of poets, 

Patriots and sages: 
She'll blazon new lustre 

On hist'ry's dim pages. 
May she wave in her glory forever! 
F. L. STANTON. Last two verses by GEORGE F. VIETT. 



Professor Tyndall says that having "exhausted physics and 
reached its very rim, the mighty mystery still looms before us * * * 
* * From the region of disorderly mystery, which is the domain 
of ignorance, another vast province has been added to science, the 
region of orderly mystery. 



252 

OFF CAPE HORN. 

The huge Horn surge chases the ship as though to the hurl of 
an earthquake. * * * I have seen the gigantic feathering curl of 
the huge sea soar on either hand alongside, to half the height of the 
foremast and fall aboard in froth, making it all sheer dazzle. * * * 

Off the Horn you get some monstrous seas. I have known what 
it is to be running before a westerly gale and to be afraid — seasoned 
as I then was — to look astern! But there is a safety in the mighty 
swing of these Andean heaps of brine which the sharper-edged surge 
of the smaller ocean does not yield; but the weather off the Horn 
is not the everlasting saddle of the Storm Fiend, as many suppose. 

* * * * That the seas off the Horn should be the heaviest in 
the world is not surprising when it is considered that the ocean there 
completely belts the globe. I watched them speechless with awe and 
astonishment; indeed, used as I was to the sea, I had never seen it so 
grand and monstrous as on this night. The terror and sublimity of 
this mighty Pacific sea engulfed the soul and stunned the senses. The 
rigging, frozen hard as iron, stood like crowbars, and our wake ran 
astern over the green, transparent hills like a broad, white, dusty high- 
way over mountains. — W. CLARK RUSSELL. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 

What is life? No man has ever grasped, or ever seen, the subtle 
entity. Hinting in a throb, a movement, a perfume, the nearness of 
its hiding-place; yet it mocks the seeker. It evades the edge of the 
keenest scalpel. Across the field of the microscope it flutters a fringe 
of its delicate robe, but no eye has ever caught the glimpse of the 
unveiled mystery. The eager scientist admits that "it trembles all 
along the line" of his research, yet it ever eludes his approach, like 
that fabled chalice, that lies where the rainbow touches the earth, 
but as the seeker advances the phantom arch recedes. So the mystery 
of life evades the keenest inquisitor. 

— NEVISON LORAINE. 



THE HORRORS OF AVAR. 

All bonds o£ brotherhood, all human and family relations were 
dissolved, all authority ceased; the differences between men and men 
disappeared; Hell unchained all crimes and let them loose on the 
world, that they might revel to their heart's content; murder, rob- 
bery, breach of faith, brutal acts of violence, animal-rage took the 
place of labor, honor, faith, and conscience. Life had lost its value. 
Thousands perished without a sigh; without leaving a memory, and, 
amid all these terrors, this lust of murder, these groans, this fire and 
smoke, new legions of frenzied men rushed to the slaughter. 

— H. SIENKIEWICZ. 



It is one of the most detestable habits of a Lilliputian mind to 
credit other people with its own malignant pettiness. 

-DE BALZAC. 



253 
LORD OF THE SEA. 



In the days of old stood the Englishman, 

In the land that lies alone, 
And he cast his eyes o'er the isle that God 

Had given him for his own. 

From the proud white cliffs to the waves he looked; 

"And my home is fair," quoth he; 
"But I'll not be spanned by a narrow land — 

I will take to myself the sea." 

So, whether it lap on a palm-fringed shore 

Or moan on an ice-bound strand, 
The sea is the road of the Englishman 

As he sails from land to land. 

The wild sea fought the Englishman 

With the rage of a brute at bay, 
With the clamorous howl of the hungry depths 

And the fury of hissing spray. 

But whenever it dashed him, blind with blood, 

And gasping, to his knee, 
In his teeth he swore, "I will try once more, 

Till I tame to myself the sea!" 

So, whether it blaze with a blinding blue 

Or swirl 'neath the flying foam, 
The sea is the realm of the Englishman — 

His highway and his home. 

"I will pay, O Sea, for the thing I take!" 

(And in blood his word kept he;) 
"The right to sail thee, the right to fight, 

Shall long remain to me." 

With silent courage that will not fail, 

And the brain to think and plan, 
And steady breath in the grip with death, 

Are the strength of the Englishman! 

And whether 'tis man disputes his right 

Or the wave that would fain be free, 
While the Englishman is an Englishman, 

He is Lord of the changeful Sea. 

—BRITISH NAUTICAL MAGAZINE. 



254 



TIGER. 

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright 
In the forest of the night! 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire — 
What the hand dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, and what art 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand formed thy dread feet' 

What the hammer, what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
Did God smile His work to see? 
Did He who made the lamb make thee? 
— W3I. BLAKE. 



ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY. 



We are conscious of our personal being now, our moral nature 
points to the continuation of our conscious personality hereafter; and 
an authoritative revelation has not only set its seal to the truth of 
the personal immortality of man, but shed an illumination all its own 
on the grave and the world beyond. 

— REV. THOMAS PEARSON. 



ANCIENT TYRE. 

I dimly perceive in the golden haze of that ancient time a fair 
city rising tier upon tier, out of the blue waters of the midland sea. 
A splendid harbour frames itself out of the mellow uncertainty, a 
harbour whereof the long white arms are stretched to welcome the 
commerce of all the known world; and under the white front and 
at the temple steps of that ancient city, Commerce poured into the lap 
of Luxury every commodity that could gratify cupidity or minister to 
human pleasure. * * * * * it was a lively and perilous place 
enough, a truly magnificent port, with incredible capacities for all the 
fair and pleasant things of life. — EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. 



REST IN THE DEEP. 



The freshest, the most spacious, the most splendid of all ceme- 
teries, every white curl of the sea a tombstone, and God's voice in the 
wind to keep ye sleeping and comforted. 

— W. CLARK RUSSELL. 



255 



THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT OX HIGH. 



The spacious firmament on high, 

With all the blue ethereal sky, 

And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 

Their great Original proclaim. 

The unwearied sun, from day to day, 

Does his Creator's power display, 

And publishes to every land 

The work of an Almighty hand. 

Soon as the evening shades prevail, 

The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 

And nightly to the listening earth 

Repeats the story of her birth; 

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 

And all the planets in their turn, 

Confirm the tidings as they roll, 

And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round this (lark terrestrial ball? 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found? 
In Reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing, as they shine, 
"The hand that made us is divine!'' 

— JOSEPH ADDISOX. 




WmWM w 




QUIETUS. 

Man and his strife! And beneath him 
The Earth in her green repose; 

And out of the Earth he cometh, and 
Into the Earth he goes. 

O, sweet at last is the Silence; O, sweet 

At the warfare's close! 
For out of the Silence he cometh, and 

Into the Silence he goes. 



And the great sea round him glistens, 
And above him the great Night glows. 

And out of the Night he cometh, and 
Into the Night he goes. 

—WILLIAM WATSON. 



256 



WANDER-THIRST. 

Beyond the east the sun-rise, 

Beyond the west the sea, 
And east and west the wander-thirst 

That will not let me he; 
It works in me like madness, dear, 

To hid me say good-bye, 
For the seas call and the stars call, 

And oh! the call of the sky! 

I know not where the white road runs, 

Nor what the blue hills are, 
But a man can have the sun for friend 

And for his guide a star; 
And there's no end of voyaging 

When once the voice is heard, 
For the river calls and the road calls, 

And oh! the call of a bird! 

Yonder the long horizon lies, 

And there by night and day, 
The old ships draw to home again, 

The young ships sail away; 
And come I may, but go I must, 

And if men ask you why, 
You may put the blame on the stars 

And the sun and the white road 

And the sky. 

— GERALD GOULD, in London Spectator. 



SANCTUARY FOR BIRD AND BEAST. 

This world is the home and heritage of the brute creation as well 
as of man. I often think that on the final Day of Reckoning, the 
most awful accusation, and the most withering curse of an outraged 
Deity, will fall upon the guilty heads of those responsible for the 
extinction of certain of the animal species. The wanton slaughter of 
the Buffalo in this country, reducing those countless herds of mag- 
nificent beasts to a few exhibition specimens, must brand us to future 
generations as an exceedingly brutal and cowardly breed of men. 
Other creatures are fast going the way of the Buffalo, and while there 
is yet time we should oppose some obstruction to the wicked slaughter. 
There should be set apart in each and every State of the Union, cer- 
tain districts wherein the animals and birds may at all times be secure 
from attack and slaughter; a sanctuary, as it were, where these per- 
secuted creatures of the earth may find refuge, and propagate unmo- 
lested their beautiful species for the delight and pleasure of future 
generations. — GEORGE F. VIETT. 



257 
THE BOOK OF JOB. 

All here is calm and measured; the face of the speaker is pale 
and still; he has no narrative to set before us; the stream of feeling 
runs at times very deep and full, but silently and noiselessly. A dreary 
sense of the miseries and worthlessness of human life broods around 
us as we read; haunts us, perhaps, as with his accents in our ears 
we sweep past the leagues of habitations that spread around this vast 
metropolis. There is poetry, but it is the poetry, if not of despair, of 
despondency, of decay, of gloom. There is cheerfulness, but it is 
not that of joyous hopefulness or gladsome faith, but of a forced and 
grim acquiescence in the irresistible doom of humanity. 

— GEORGE G. BRADLEY, D D. 



SOME DAY. 

Some clay in anguish one shall kneel 

Beside the other's quiet bed, 

And in that fearful moment feel 

The worth of life forever fled, 

For one shall sleep, 

And one shall weep 

In anguish all uncomforted. 

And one shall stand beside a bier, 

And grudge the other's happier lot, 
And touch, with many a blinding tear, 
A pallid lip that answers not. 
Which shall it be 
Or thee — or me, 
To know all earth a desert spot? 

And one shall, from a new-made mound 

Go forth into the world alone, 
Remembering e'er the muffled sound 

Of falling earth — which one — which one? 
O, God, I praise 
Thy secret ways 
That keep this grief a while unknown! 

—HOWARD FARMER. 



POWER OF BELIEF. 

To believe in an everlasting and perfect Mind, supreme ovei^che 
universe, is to invest moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, 
and lift them from the provincial stage of human society to the im- 
perishable theatre of all being. When planted thus in the very sub- 
stance of things, they justify and support the ideal estimates of the 
conscience; they deepen every guilty shame; they guarantee every 
righteous hope; and they help the will with a Divine casting-vote in 
every balance of temptation. — MARTINEAU. 



258 

FAIRY PLIGHT. 

Under the oaks in the moonless night, 
I saw the fairies that took their flight, 
With stars to guide them and shadows to hide them, 
And lilies for lantern light. 

Like a flight of leaves that the wild wind reaves 
From fading houghs in Autumn eves, 

They fluttered and scuttered, they whispered and muttered 
"Away! holla-ho! away!" 

And now in my dreams I see them go 
I hear them rustle, now loud, now low, 
With shrill triangle, and cymbals that jangle, 
And little gold horns that blow. 
Like a flight of bees through the darkling trees, 
That chase and follow a wandering breeze, 
They scatter and mingle, their bridle-bells jingle 
"Away! holla-ho! away!" 

Some day I know I shall hear them call 
By leaping river or ivied wall, 
With mystic rhyming, like silvery chiming 
Afar in an elfin hall; 

Like a flight of doves thro' the leafy groves 
I will roam afar with my airy loves, 
With bugles a-ringing and wee voices singing 
"Away! holla-ho! away!" 

—PALL MALL GAZETTE. 



THE STORM AND ITS SHADOW. 

One of the strange things in all the strange course of our human 
life is, perhaps, the suddenness of certain unlooked-for events, which, 
on a day, or even an hour, may work utter devastation where there 
has been more or less peace, and hopeless ruin where there has been 
comparative safety. 

A tranquil time now ensued; a time, which, though I knew it not, 
was just that singular pause so frequently , observed in nature before 
a storm, and in human life before a crushing calamity. 

— MARIE CORELLI. 



259 



WEARY THE WAITING. 

There's an end to all toiling some day — sweet day! 

But how weary the waiting — weary! 
There's a harbor somewhere in a peaceful bay 
Where the sails will be furled and the ship will lay 
At anchor — somewhere in the far-away — 

But it's weary the waiting, weary! 

There's an end to the sorrow of souls oppressed, 

But it's weary the waiting, weary! 
Somewhere in the future, when God thinks best, 
He will lay us tenderly down to rest, 
And roses will bloom from the thorns in the breast — 

But it's weary the waiting, weary! 

There's an end to the world with it's stormy frown, 

But how weary the waiting — weary! 
There's a light somewhere that no dark can drown, 
And where life's sad burdens are all laid down — 
A crown — thank God — for each cross a crown, 
But it's weary the waiting, weary! 

— FRANK L. STANTON. 



SPIRITUAL CONTEMPLATION. 

He who believes in other worlds can accustom himself to look 
on this as the naturalist on the revolutions of an ant-hill, or of a leaf. 
What is the Earth to Infinity — what its duration to the Eternal? 
Oh, how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of 
the whole globe! Child of Heaven and heir of Immorality, how far 
from one star hereafter wilt thou look back on the ant-hill and its 
commotions, from Clovis to Robespierre, from Noah to the Final 
Fire? The spirit that can contemplate, that lives only in the intel- 
lect, can ascend to its star, even from the midst of the Burial-groud 
called Earth, and while the sarcophagus called Life immures in its 
clay the Everlasting. LORD LYTTON. 



POWER OF WOMAN. 

One always believes in God by the side of a good woman! A 
brave, sweet, pure-hearted woman is the most terrific reproach that 
exists on earth to the evil-doer and wicked man. It is as though the 
deaf blind God suddenly made Himself manifest, as though He not 
only heard and saw, but with His voice thundered loud accusations! 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 

The evil and failure that darken the present are necessary to the 
illumination of the future. Time is long. "God tosses back to man his 
failures," one by one, and gives us time and strength to try again. 

—DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



260 

THE GRANDEUR OF LOVE. 



When love has fused and mingled two souls in one holy and 
angelic unity, the secret of life is solved for them; they are not two 
terms of the same destiny, but the pair of wings on which one spirit 
soars. To love is to sail over the world. * * * * Love is the 
celestial breath of the air of paradise. Wise minds and profound 
hearts, take life as 'tis prepared for ye; it is the long test and unin- 
telligible preparation for an unknown destiny. This true fate com- 
mences with the first step going down to the grave. Then something 
will appear to enlighten and distinguish the definite. Think over that 
word! The living see infinity; the definite is viewed but by the dead. 
In the meantime, love and endure, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! 
to him who loves merely the form, the body, the appearances! Death 
will take away all that; but try to love the soul, and you will find it 
again. I met in the street a young man who loved. He was very poor; 
his hat was old, his coat worn, and his elbows out. The water ran 
through his shoes and the stars through his mind. 

What a grand thing it is to be loved! How much greater to love! 
The heart becomes heroic by passion. All it is composed of becomes 
pure, and it rests upon only the grand and elevated. An unworthy 
thought can no more flourish there than a nettle on an iceberg. The 
high and serene spirit, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, 
soars over the clouds and shadiness of this world, its follies, falsehoods, 
and hatreds, vanities and misery, to dwell in heaven's blue, feeling only 
the deep-down shocks of destiny as mountain-peaks the earthquake. 
If there were no one loving, the sun would die out. * * * * * 
How happened it that their lips met? How is it that the birds sing, 
snow melts, roses bloom, May opens, and the aurora whitens the 
shivering hill-tops behind the black trees? * * * * It appeared 
perfectly natural to her that he should be there * * * * Her 
spirit fluttered on her lips, like a dew-drop on the bud. * * * * 
Overhead the night was serene and splendid. This pair, pure as their 
souls, told each other everything — dreams, delights, ecstacies, flights 
of fancy, weaknesses — how they had worshipped from afar, how 
longed for each other, and their despair when they saw each other no 
more. With candid faith in their illusions, they related all that love, 
youth, boyishness and girlishness put into their heads. The two 
hearts flowed toward each other, so that in an hour's time the young 
man had the girl's soul and she had his. They intermingled, enchanted 
each other, and mutually dazzled. 

— VICTOR HUGO, in "Les Miserables." 



ART ABOVE PHILOSOPHY. 



For art precedes philosophy and even science. People must have 
noticed things and interested themselves in them before they began 
to debate upon their causes or influence. And it is in this way that 
art is the pioneer of knowledge. 

LESLIE STEPHENS. 



261 
THE MOODS OF THE SEA. 

What companion is there like the great, restless, throbbing sea? 
What human mood is there which it does not match and sympathize 
with? There are none so gay but that they may feel gayer when they 
listen to its merry turmoil, and see the long green surges racing in, 
with the glint of the sunbeams in their sparkling crests. But when 
the grey waves toss their heads in anger, and the wind screams above 
them, goading them on to madder and more tumultuous efforts, then 
the darkest-minded of men feels that there is a melancholy principle 
in nature which is as gloomy as his own thoughts. 

A. CONAN DOYLE. 



"ON THE DIZZY HEIGHTS." 

On the dizzy heights of Fancy, 

Where the brilliant sun-tints glow 
With a strange, unearthly splendor, 

Never known in vales below — 
Where Imagination's pinions 

Bathe themselves in living light, 
And nought worldly clogs the spirit, 

To impede to rapturous flight — 
We can almost read the meaning 

Of the things that baffle sense; 
We can almost touch the curtain 

Veiled around Omnipotence. 

—AMERICA. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

That the wrong was not all on one side, Americans who prefer 
history to rhetoric are beginning to admit That the British gov- 
ernment was not tyrannical, or for those times a bad government, that 
the colonists enjoyed under it the substantial benefits of freedom, is 
proved by the testimony of Revolutionary leaders themselves, all of 
whom, including Samuel Adams and Washington, found it necessary, 
in order to carry the people with them, to protest that they did not 
mean separation. GOLDWIN SMITH, LL. D. 



CHILD OF DREAMS. 

Man is a froward child who builds mansions out of dreams, and, 
jockeyed by hope, sets out at a gallop along the visionary road to his 
desires. — W. CLARK RUSSELL. 



THE IMMENSITY OF HUMAN IGNORANCE. 

The greatest interpreters of science have even been the humblest, 
because alike, "in the choir of Heaven and the furniture of earth," 
they have recognized the immensity of human ignorance. 

REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



262 

THOU CANST NOT FORGET. 



Thou canst not forget me, for memory will 
fling 
Her light o'er oblivion's dark sea; 
And where'er thou roamest a something will 
cling 
To thy bosom that whispers of me. 
Though the chords of thy spirit I never may 
sweep, 
Of my touch they'll retain a soft thrill, 
Like the low undertone of the murmuring 
deep 
When the wind that has stirred it is still. 

The love that is kept in the beauty of trust, 
Cannot pass like the foam from the seas, 
Or the mark that the finger hath made in 
the dust, 
When tis swept by the breath of the 
breeze. 
They tell me my love thou wilt calmly 
resign, 
Yet I ever, while listening to them, 
Will sigh for the heart that was linked unto 
mine 
As a rosebud is linked to its stem. 

Thou canst not forget me! .Too long hast 
thou flung 
Thy spirit's soft pinions o'er mine; 
Too deep was the promise that round my 
lips clung, 
As they softly responded to thine. 
In the dusk of the twilight, beneath the 
blue sky, 
My presence will mantle thy soul, 
And a feeling of sadness will rush to thine 
eye, 
Too deep for thy manhood's control. 

Thou canst not forget me! .the passion that 
dwelt 
In thy bosom will slumbering lie, 
In the memory of all thou hast murmured 
and felt 
The thought of me never can die. 
Thou may'st turn to another, and wish to 
forget, 



263 



But the wish will not bring thee repose; 
For, Oh! thou wilt find that the thorns of 
regret 
Were hut hid by the leaves of the rose. 

And in thy heart's mansion, dark-eyed 
Remorse 
A corner securely will hold; 
Pangs will beset thee on life ; s restless course 

Whose story thou wilt not unfold. 
Thou canst not forget me! in retrospect's 
aisle 
There'll be meeting when least we expect, 
And thou wilt remember though pleasure 
beguile 
The love thou didst lighly reject. 

AUTHOR UNIDENTIFIED. 
(Last verse by G. F. V.) 



OPPORTUNITY. 



Master of human destinies am I! 

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps 

wait. 
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 
I knock unbidden once at every gate! 
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 
I turn away. . It is the hour of fate, 
And they who follow me reach every state 
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate 
Condemned to failure, penury and woe 
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore 
I answer not,, and I return no more! 

—JOHN J. INGALLS. 




teMsa&s&a 



TIME. 

Time is not always a hard parent, and though he tarries for none 
of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used 
him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but 
leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such 
people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand, 
in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the cal- 
endar of a well spent life. — CHARLES DICKENS. 



264 

MONOPOLY NECESSARILY A PUBLIC FUNCTION. 

New issues demand new answers. It is in vain to pit the mori- 
bund system of competition against the young giant of private mon- 
opoly; it must rather be opposed by the greater giant of public mon- 
opoly. The consolidation of business in private interests must be met 
with greater consolidation in the public interest, the trust and the 
syndicate with the city, state and nation, capitalism with nation- 
alism. The capitalists have destroyed the competitive system. Do 
not try to restore it, but rather thank them for the work, if not the 
motive, and set about, not to rebuild the old village or hovels, but to 
rear on the cleared place the temple humanity so long has waited 
for EDWARD BELLAMY. 



WHICH ROAD? 

If you could go back to the forks of the road — 
Back the long miles you have carried the load; 
Back to the place where you had to decide 
By this way or that through your life to abide; 
Back of the sorrow and back of the care; 
Back to the place where the future was fair — 
If you were there now, a decision to make, 
O, pilgrim of sorrow, which road would you take? 

Then, after you'd trodden the other long track, 
Suppose then again to the forks you went back; 
After you found that its promises fair 
Were but a delusion that led to a snare — 
That the road you first traveled with sighs and unrest, 
Though dreary and rough was most graciously blest, 
With balm for each bruise and a charm for each ache, 
Oh, pilgrim of sorrow, Which road would you take? 

— CHICAGO HERALD. 



THE MUMMY. 

That kingly ash with mouth locked tight, whose lightest whisper 
once had made or marred in every court or camp from dusty Abab- 
dah to green Euphrates, and brows set rigid, whose frown had once 
cost twenty thousand lives, made twenty thousand wives to widows, 
and eyes shut fast that seemed still to dream of shadowy empire — of 
golden afternoons in golden ages — a most ancient, a most curious 
fellow. EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. 



PITY, WOMAN'S SPECIAL VIRTUE. 

Pity is a sentiment so natural, so appropriate to the female char- 
acter, that it is scarcely a merit for a woman to possess it, but to be 
without it is a grievous crime, cruel and unfeminine. Ambrosio could 
not easily forgive his mistress for being deficient in this amiable 
quality. * — MONK LEWIS, in "Rosario." 



265 
MUL.TUM IN PARVO. 

"The cleverest woman," said Napoleon, "is the woman who is 
clever enough to conceal her cleverness." 

Prudence is too often the only virtue left at seventy-two. — Oliver 
Goldsmith. 

The friends* of our friends are our friends. — Eugene Sue. 

Christ was the first true gentleman that ever breathed. — Decker. 

Sensual pleasure palls; so does the merely intellectual; but can the 
same be said of the happiness of virtue and affection? — Goldwin 
Smith. 

"Would you draw milk from an ox? — Balzac. 

I love you more than tongue can tell, or heart can hold in 
silence. — Blackmore. 

God shapes all our fitness, and gives each man his meaning, even 
as he guides the wavering lines of snow descending. — Blackmore. 

But let me tell you that the obligation of money-making soils the 
soul. — W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

Let loose the albatross in midland woods, and the crow is the 
better bird. — W. Clark Russell. 

Plato declares that virtue is music, that the life of a sage is 
harmony. 

If happiness is landlord here then would I be his tenant. — 
Edwin Lester Arnold. 

It is well said that the heart is a volunteer that serves under what 
flag it chooses. — Sienkiewicz. 



CHRIST AND WOMEN. 



Paganism degraded women; Christ found among women, even 
the fallen and sinful, his chosen ministers. Paganism had neglected 
children universally, had degraded them in myriads, had murdered 
them wholesale; Christ made them the types of loving humility, and 
"flung the desecrator of their innocence, with a mill-stone round his 
neck, into the sea." — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



There is a sense of hearing that the vulgar know not. 

LORD LYTTON. 



266 

THE LAND OF "MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN." 

No wise man stops to consider his by-gone possibilities. The land 
of Might-Have-Been is, after all, nothing but a blurred prospect, a 
sort of dim and distant landscape, where the dull clouds' rain per- 
petual tears. —MARIE CORELLI. 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 

"And this is human happiness. 
To have 
Attentive and believing faculties; 
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy 
Of beautiful and well created things. 
To love the voice of waters and the sheen 
Of silver fountains leaping to the sun. 
To thrill with the rich melody of birds 
Living their life of music; to be glad 
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm; 
To see beauty in the stirring leaf, 
And find calm thoughts 
Beneath the whispering tree. 

— Author unidentified. 



MARIE CORELLI'S ESTIMATE OF SOME WOMEN. 

As a rule women are less sensitive than men. There are many of 
the sex who are nothing but lumps of lymph and fatty matter — women 
with less instinct than the dumb beasts, and with more brutality. 
There are others who — adding the low cunning of the monkey to the 
vanity of the peacock, — seek no other object than the furtherance of 
their own designs, which are always petty when not absolutely mean. 
There are women with thin lips and pointed noses, who live only to 
squabble over domestic grievances and interfere in their neighbor's 
business. There are your murderous women with large almond eyes, 
fair white hands, and red, voluptuous lips, who, deprived of the dag- 
ger or the poison bowl, will slay a reputation with their tongue. There 
are the miserly women who look after the cheese parings and candle 
ends, and lock up the soap. There are the spiteful women whose 
every breath is acidity and venom. There are the frivolous women 
whose chitter-chatter and senseless giggle are as empty as the rattling 
of dry peas on a drum. In fact, the delicacy of women is extremely 
overrated and their coarseness is never done full justice to. I assure 
you men are far more delicate than women — far more chivalrous — far 
larger in their views — and more generous in their sentiments. * * * 
* * The selfish feminine thing, whose only sincere worship is of- 
fered at the shrine of Fashion and Folly, is of all creatures the one 
whose life is to be despised and never desired, and whose death makes 
no blank even in the circles of her so-called friends. 



267 



BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. 



Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming 

of the Lord; 
He is trampling out the vintage where the 

grapes of wrath are stored. 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His 

terrible swift sword; 

His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hun- 
dred circling camps; 

They have builded Him an altar in the even- 
ing dews and damps; 

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim 
and flaring lamps; 

His days are marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished 
rows of steel; 

"As ye deal with My contemners, so with 
you My grace shall deal; 

Let the Hero born of woman crush the ser- 
pent with his heel, 

Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall 
never call retreat; 

He is sifting out the hearts of men before 
His judgment seat; 

O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubi- 
lant my feet! 

Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born 

across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures 

you and me; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to 
make men free, 

While God is marching on. 

—JULIA WARD HOWE. 




268 

WE SHALL be satisfied. 



The world is wise with many a new conceit, 
And our old hope of heaven, that was so sweet 
In simpler times, is now a hope forlorn — 
The superstition of "a creed outworn," 
That only bahes and sucklings still repeat. 

"No God," it says, save that which we create 
In our own consciousness; no after state 

To bring us recompense for good or ill. 

We live, we die; and unborn lives fulfill 
The immortality for which we wait. 

Ah — world, wise world! if you are right indeed, 
Where shall the broken-hearted find a creed 

To give them comfort? When the earth is piled 
Upon the coffin-lid that hides her child, 
What is there left to meet the mother's need? 

And laying down her hopeless life at last, 
What joy to know its shadow shall be cast 
On unborn generations? Better be 
As the dumb beasts are, soulless, and go free 
Alike from care of future things or past! 

For me, I learned, beside a grassy bed 
Where white arms of a marble cross are spread, 
And heartease purples with the budding spring, 
That life, like love, is an immortal thing, 
And both shall rise, as Christ rose, from the dead. 

Wisdom may cavil, Learning make it plain 
That all the sacred promises are vain; 

But, O, my own! whose every thought inspires 

To higher aims and holier desires, 
I shall he down by you and rise again. 

And Thou, dear Lord and Master! for whose sake 
This cross we cling to, on whose death we stake 
Our deathless confidence, Thy word has lent 
Assurance sweet wherein I rest content; 
"We shall be satisfied when we awake!" 

— MARY BRADLEY. 



LAST WORDS OF ISAAC TAYLOR. 

"I would be content to reach the humblest place in the outer- 
most circle of heavenly blessedness." And within a day or two of 
the end, after settling a small matter of business, he added, " I desire 
now to have nothing before me but an unclouded view of immortality." 



269 




A SEA ROMANCE. 



A mermaiden beautiful, 

Clever and dutiful, 
Sat on a sea billow trimming her frock 

With coral and spangles 

She'd found in the tangles 
Of seaweed that grew by the side of a 
rock. 




A merman was roaming 
About in the gloaming — 
A handsome young merman who dwelt 
in the sea, 
And he spied the sea fairy 
So graceful and airy, 
And said, "She's the very mermaiden 
for me!" 

When the starlight was fading 
He went serenading, 
And played on a lute that was studded 
with pearls; 
And he sang, "From your pillow, 
Come dance on the billow, 
Oh, sweetest and dearest of all the 
mergirls ! 

"Be mine, and together 
We'll float like a feather, 

And sail far away in the curl of a 
wave ; 
But if you reject me, 
And scorn and neglect me, 

I'll go and I'll bury myself in a cave." 




The mermaiden listened, 

Her amber eyes glistened, 
She fled from her slumber to dance in 
the foam; 

And when they were married 

A green billow carried 
Them off to their beautiful sea grotto 

home. 




270 

"THE BABBLING O' GREEN FIELDS." 

I passed yesterday in the neighborhood of Leith, a pubilc slaugh- 
ter-house. A flock of sheep were going one by one up an inclined 
gangway into an upper room of unpremeditated death. They were 
pushing each other upwards, to the yelping music of two collie-dogs, 
in apparent eagerness to follow their leader. As each in turn would 
stand upon the gangway's upper ledge, too soon he would solve the 
secret of the horrible charnel-house. Too soon, and too late. For 
Ba-ba is the cry behind; which interpreted would mean: "Move on, 
and let us see what's to be seen." They would see it soon enough, poor 
bleating simpletons; and then there would be the last Ba-ba and the 
babbling o' green fields. 

D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON, 

in "The Philosophy of Sorrow." 



MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER 

ROSE. 
My life is like the summer rose, 

That opens to the morning sky, 
But ere the shades of evening close, 

Is scattered on the ground — to die! 
Y r et on that rose's humble bed 
The sweetest dews of night are shed, 
As if she wept the waste to see, — 
But none shall weep a tear for me! 

My life is like the autumn leaf 

That trembles in the moon's pale ray; 
Its hold is frail, its date is brief, — 
Restless, and soon to pass away; 
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, 
The parent tree will mourn its shade. 
The winds bewail the leafless tree, — 
But none shall breathe a sigh for me! 

My life is like the prints which feet 
Have left on Tampa's desert strand; 

Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 
All trace will vanish from the sand. 

Yet, as if grieving to efface 

All vestige of the human race, 

On that lone shore loud moans the 
sea, — 

But none, alas, shall mourn for me! 
— R. H. WILDE. 

OCEAN WINDS. 

They come from the immeasurable deep. Their wide wings need 
the breadth of the ocean gulf; the spaciousness of vast solitudes; the 
great blue plains are their delight — VICTOR HUGO. 



271 



IN THE BREAKING OF THE DAY. 



In the grey of Easter even, 

When the light begins to fade, 
Fly two angels out of Heaven, 

Veiled in vesper shade. 
And they watch by those that sleep, 

As they watched Emmanuel's rest, 
And they comfort all who weep, 

As they soothed sad Mary's breast. 
Soft they whisper through the night, 

"Wait until the morning light! 
From your sorrow look away 

To the breaking of the day." 

In the Easter dawn victorious, 

When the stars in rose-light fade, 
Rise those angels, plumed and glorious 

Like the sun arrayed! 
And they gather up the flowers 

From the purple plains of morning, 
Far and wide in bloomy showers, 

Graves of mid-night woe adorning; 
Saying, singing, "Christ is Risen! 

Watch no more the open prison! 
He has led your loved away 

In the breaking of the day!" 

— FRANCES L. MACE. 



THE SUBLIMITY OF HUMAN SORROW. 

We are, indeed, weak creatures, moving ever onward beneath 
some irresistible pressure towards an inevitable gulf. From 
time to time we catch fleeting glimpses of happiness; but misfortunes 
cling to us like burrs; and sorrow clothes us with a Nessus-shirt of 
pain. In the morning we are green and grow up; in the evening we 
are cut down, dried up, and withered. But is there no balm in Gilead? 
Hath philosophy no anodyne, and religion no herbs of healing? 

Let us cease complaining; and consider awhile the dignity, and 
majesty, and sublimity of our human nature. Let us draw comfort 
as in a bucket, from the well of tears. For our weakness is our 
strength, and our shame our glory. It is the unspeakable sadness of 
our common lot that gives that lot what'er of sweetness and of beauty 
it can call its own. The angels in Heaven, amid their monotone of 
grand, eternal praise, must look, not with pity, but with an almost 
envying wonderment at the spectacle of a son weeping beside his 
dead mother, or of a father staring down into the new grave of his 
dead son. So grand a thing is human sorrow; so grand, and terrible, 
and sublime, and holy. — D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 



272 

THE IRREPRESSIBLE 3IORTGAGE. 

The mortgage is a self-supporting institution. It always holds 
its own. It calls for just as many dollars when grain is cheap as 
when grain is dear. It is not affected by the drouth. It is not 
drowned out by the heavy rains. Winter never kills it. Late springs 
and early frosts never trouble it. It grows nights, Sundays, rainy 
days and even holidays. It brings a sure crop every year, and some- 
times twice a year. It produces cash every time. It does not have 
to wait for the market to advance. It is not subject to speculation of 
the bulls and bears on the Board of Trade. It is a load that galls 
and frets and chafes. It is a burden that the farmer cannot shake off. 
It is with him morning, noon and night. It eats with him at the 
table. It gets under his pillow when he sleeps. It rides upon his 
shoulders during the day. It consumes his grain crop. It devours 
his cattle. It selects the finest horses and the fattest steers. It lives 
upon the first fruit of the season. It stalks into the dairy where 
the busy housewife toils day after day and month after month and 
takes the nicest cheese and the choicest butter. It shares the 
children's bread and robs them of half their clothes. It stoops the 
toiler's back with its remorseless burden of care. It hardens his 
hands, benumbs his intellect, prematurely whitens his locks, and 
oftentimes sends him and his aged wife over the hill to the poor-house. 

It is the inexorable and exacting taskmaster. Its whip is as 
merciless and cruel as the lash of the slave-driver. It is a menace to 
liberty, a hindrance to progress, a curse to the world. 

— FROM "THE AMERICAN BANKER." 



TO THE CUCKOO. 



The schoolboy, wandering through the wood 

To pull the primrose gay, 
Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, 

And imitates the lay. 

What time the pea puts on the bloom, 

Thou fliest thy vocal vale, 
An annual guest in other lands 

Another spring to hail. 

Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green, 

Thy sky is ever clear; 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 

No winter in thy year! 

O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! 

We'd make on joyful wing, 
Our annual visit o'er the globe, 

Companions of the spring. 

—JOHN LOGAN. 



DAYS OF MY YOUTH. 



Bays of my youth. 

Ye have glided away; 
Hairs of my youth, 

Ye are frosted and grey; 
Eyes of my youth, 

Your keen sight is no more; 
Cheeks of my youth. 

Ye are furrowed all o'er; 
Strength of my youth, 

All your vigor is gone; 
Thoughts of my youth, 

A^our gay visions are flown. 

Days of my youth, 

I wish not your recall; 
Hairs of my youth, 

I'm content ye should fall; 
Eyes of my youth, 

You much evil have seen; 
Cheeks of my youth, 

Bathed in tears you have been; 
Thoughts of my youth, 

A'ou have led me astray; 
Strength of my youth, 

Why lament your decay? 

Bays of my age, 

Ye will shortly be past; 
Pains of my age, 

Yet a while can ye last; 
Joys of my age, 

In true wisdom delight; 
Eyes of my age, 

Be religion your light; 
Thoughts of my age, 

Bread ye not the cold sod; 
Hopes of my age, 

Be ye fixed on your God. 

— ST. GEORGE TUCKER. 

THE BOVE OF WOMAN. 

Come what may we must love woman! I defy you to get out of 
that dilemma. These rogues are our angels. Everyone has his own 
way of adoring his idol. A man's best way to reverence his Maker 
is to love his wife. On the bridal chamber still stands an angel, 
smiling with its finger on its lips. When lips sanctified by love, ap- 
proach in the sanctioned kiss, it is impossible that there should not 
be a thrill above them in the immense mystery of the stars. 

VICTOR HUGO. 



274 



PRIVATE SMITH. 



Private Smith of the Royals, the veldt 

and a slate-black sky, 
Hillocks of mud, brick-red with blood, 

and a prayer — half curse — to die. 
A lung and a Mauser bullet; pink froth 

and a half -choked cry. 

Private Smith of the Royals; a torrent 
"of freezing rain; 

A hail of frost on a life half lost; de- 
spair and a grinding pain. 

And the drip-drip-drip of the Heavens 
to wash out the brand of Cain. 

Private Smith of the Royals, self- 
sounding his funeral knell; 

A burning throat that each gasping 
note scrapes raw like a broken 
shell. 

A thirst like a red-hot iron and a 
tongue like a patch of hell. 

Private Smith of the Royals; the blush 

of a dawning day; 
The fading mist that the sun has 

kissed — and over the hills away 
The blest Red Cross like an angel in 

the trail of the men who slay. 

But Private Smith of the Royals gazed 

up at the soft blue sky — 
The rose-tinged morn like a babe new 

born and the sweet-songed birds 

on high — 
With a fleck of red on his pallid lips 

and a film of white on his eye. 
— HERBERT CADETT, in the London 

Daily Chronicle. 

IMPLACABILITY OF NATURE. 

Nature, who is unconscious in her immorality, entrancing in her 
beauty, savage in her cruelty, imperial in her prodigality, and appall- 
ing in her convulsions, is not only deaf, but dumb. There is no answer 
to any appeal. — "Anatomy of Negation," SALTUS. 



Shame on the coward soul which wants the courage either to be 
a firm friend or an open enemy. — MONK LEWIS. 



275 
EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE. 



A fiery mist and a planet, 

A crystal and a cell — 
A jelly-fish and a saurian, 

And caves where the cavemen dwell; 
Then a sense of law and beauty 

And a face turned from the clod — 
Some call it evolution 
, And others call it God. 

A haze on the far horizon — 

The infinite, tender sky — 
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, 

And the wild geese sailing high — 
And all over upland and lowland 

The charm of the golden-rod — 
Some of us call it autumn, 

And others call it God. 

Like tides on a crescent sea beach 

When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings 

Come welling and surging in — 
Come from the mystic ocean, 

Whose rim no foot has trod — 
Some of us call it longing, 

And others call it God. 

A picket frozen on duty — 

A mother starved for her brood — 
Socrates drinking the hemlock, 

And Jesus on the rood; 
And millions who, humble and name- 
less, 

The straight, hard pathway trod — 
Some call it consecration, 

And others call it God. 

— WILLIAM HENRY CARRUTH. 

SUNRISE OVER AFRICA. 

Soon, heralded by spears, streamers and sheaves of shining gold, 
the majestic silence of his entry smiting the waiting hemisphere like 
the trump of an archangel, the great sun rose. 

Gleaming stretches of shining sand, showed the proximity of 
Africa, ancient land of mystery. * * * * * a subdued murmur, 
like that of a shell, but with an occasional swell therein, was rather 
suggested than heard, so unceasing was the deep monotone the un- 
resting roll of the Indian ocean sent up from those lonely shores. 

— FRANK BUL.LEN. 



AX OBSTACLE. 



I was coming up a mountain path, 

With many things to do, 
Important business of my own 

And other people's, too, 
When I ran against a Prejudice 

That quite cut off the view. 

My work was such as could not wait, 
My path quite clearly showed; 

My strength and time were limited, 
I carried quite a load; 

And there that hulking Prejudice 
Sat all across the road. 

So I spoke to him politely, 

For he was huge and high, 
And begged that he would move a bit 

And let me travel by. 
He smiled, but as for moving — 

He did not even try. 

And then I reasoned quietly 

With that colossal mule; 
The time was short, no other path, 

The mountain winds were cool — 
I argued like a Solomon — 

He sat there like a fool. 

Then I flew into a passion, 

I danced and howled and swore, 

I pelted and belabored him 

. .Till I was stiff and sore; 

He got as mad as I did — 
And sat there as before. 

And then I begged him on my knees — 

I might be kneeling still 
If I so hoped to move that mass 

Of obdurate ill will — 
As well invite the monument 

To vacate Bunker Hill. 

So I sat before him helpless, 

In an ecstacy of woe; 
The mountain mists were rising fast, 

The sun was sinking low — 
When a sudden inspiration came, 

As sudden winds do blow. 




277 




I took my liat, I took my stick, 

My load I settled fair; 
I approached that awful incubus 

With absent-minded air — 
And I walked directly through him, 

As if he was not there. 

— Charlotte Perkins Stetson. 



LOVE FOREVER, AND A DAY. 




Sweet sorceress! "With white arms soft and slender; 

With drooping eyelids veined with precious blue; 
With shy red mouth all mutinous and tender; 

I drain to-night my soul's own toast to you! 
Light as the bead within this wine-cup swimming 

Foams in my heart the memory of your kiss; 
Look in my eyes! Behold — the glass is brimming! 

Drain it with me, and let the toast be this: 
Away, regret! Let come what sorrow may, 

I'll love you, Love, forever and a day. 

The cost? Who'd heed a world's insensate carping? 

Pooh! For the preacher's paradise of lies. 
A thousand minstrels in my soul are harping 

The melody that's dreaming in your eyes. 
A fig for all the woes of Hell infernal! 

If they exist, I'll make the sacrifice. 
I'll buy your love at cost of peace eternal, 

And, with a sigh of rapture, pay the price. 
Away, regret! Let Fate do what it may, 

I'll love you, Love, forever and a day. 

Love of all loves, whose white embrace enchants me; 

Whose two blue eyes are pools of passion deep; 
Whose merest whisper thrills me and delights me, 

I'll woo you waking — dream of you asleep. 
I know no creed save that of your confession; 

No spell save passion, and no love save yours; 
No blessing but your beauty's dear possession. 

Drain, then, the wine, and pledge me as it pours: 
Away, regret! Let come what sorrow may, 

I'll love you, Love, forever and a day. 

— B. A. RICHARDSON, Jr., of Norfolk, Va. 



THE POWER OF HABIT. 

It is hard to bid farewell to a habit. Many a suicide has paused 
on the very threshold of death, at the thought of the Cafe to which h* 
resorts for his nightly game of dominoes. — De BALZAC. 



278 




'THE MONOLOGUE OF DEATH. 




(These lines, spoken by the Spirit of 
Death, in the guise of a "white pilgrim," are 
altered from a tragedy called "The White 
Pilgrim," and were printed for the first time 
in their present form in the London "Spec- 
tator," June 4th, 1881.) 

Miscall me not! Men have miscalled me 

much ; 
Have given harsh names and harsher 

thoughts to me, 
Reviled and evilly entreated me, 
Built me strange temples as an unknown 

God; 
Then called me idol, devil, unclean thing, 
And to rude insult bowed my godhead down. 
Miscall me not! for men have marred my 

form. 
And in the earth-born grossness of their 

thought 
Have coldly modelled me of their own clay, 
Then fear to look on that themselves have 

made. 
Miscall me not! ye know not what I am, 
But ye shall see me face to face, and know. 

I take all sorrows from the sorrowful, 
And teach the joyful what it is to joy; 
I gather in my land-locked harbour's clasp 
The shattered vessels of a vexed world; 
And even the tiniest ripple upon Life 
Is, to my sublime calm, as tropic storm. 
When other leechcraft fails the breaking 

brain, 
I, only, own the anodyne to still 
Its eddies into visionless repose: 

The face, distorted with Life's latest pang, 
I smooth, in passing, with an angel- wing; 
And from beneath the quiet eyelids steal 
The hidden glory of the eyes, to give 
A new and nobler beauty to the rest. 




279 



Belie me not! the plagues that walk the 

Earth, 
The wasting pain, the sudden agony, 
Famine, and War, and Pestilence, and all 
The terrors that have darkened round my 

name, — 
These are the plagues of Life, — they are not 

mine; 
Vex while I tarry, vanish when I come, 
Instantly melting into perfect peace, 
As at His word, whose Master-spirit I am, 
The troubled waters slept on Galilee. 

When I withdraw the veil which hides my 

face, 
So melt I, with a look, the iron bonds 
Of the soul's gaoler, hard Mortality. 
Gently — so gently — like a tired child, 
Will I enfold thee: but thou canst not look 
Upon my face, and stay. In the busy haunts 
Of human life — in the temple and the street, 
And when the blood runs fullest in the 

veins- — 
Unseen, undreamed of, I am often by. 
Divided from the giant in his strength 
But by the thickness of this misty veil. 

Tender, I am, not cruel; when I take 

The shape most hard to human eyes, and 

pluck 
The little baby-blossom yet unblown, 
'Tis but to graft it on a kindlier stem, 
And leaping o'er the perilous years of 

growth, 
Unswept of sorrow, and unscathed of wrong, 
Clothe it at once with rich maturity. 
'Tis I that give a soul to Memory; 
For round the follies of the bad I throw 
The mantle of a kind for get fulness; 
While, canonized in dear Love's calendar, 
I sanctify the good for evermore. 
Miscall me not! my generous fullness lends 
Home to the homeless; to the friendless, 

friends ; 
To the starved babe, the mother's tender 

breast; 
Wealth to the poor, and to the restless, — 

Rest. 

— HERMAN C. MERIVALE. 



280 



MOTTO OF VIRGINIA. 

With nutmegs and notions we suffered the 

tide, 
Determined in battle to conquer or die. 
"Sic Semper Tyrannis" our watchword shall 

be, 
Our fathers were freemen and we shall be 

free. 

Chorus. 
Huzza! Huzza! we echo the cry! 
"Sic Semper Tyrannis," we conquer or die! 

We honor thy valleys, thy mountains, and 

hills; 
Thy full gushing fountains, thy rivers, thy 

rills ; 
The birthplace of Washington, Johnston and 

Lee, 
The cradle of heroes, and sweet liberty. 

And when I am called from the conflicts of 

earth, 
Virginia, Virginia, dear land of my birth, 
In thy faithful bosom, O give me a grave! 
Along with the faithful, the noble, and 

brave. 

—AXON. 




ENGL AND" S CALL. 




England, to arms! The need is nigh, 

The danger at your gate; 
In long array your foes ally, — 

A league of greed and hate. 
Not ours the crime of war accurst; 

But once let war begin, 
They'll have to kill the Lion first 

Who'd wear the Lion's skin! 



Go tell the world our watchword now, 

Let deep proclaim to deep, — 
The crown that shines on England's brow 

Her sons' right hands will keep! 
The empire that our fathers got, — 

It is not ended yet, 
And on it, as the sun sets not, 

No sun shall ever set. 

—ANON. 



281 
THE MIND OF JOHN FOSTER. 

We have thus found not a little to qualify and supplement in the 
works of Foster. It were quite an erroneous idea, however, if our 
exceptions were taken as illustrative of the whole tenor of his works, 
or as testing their general value. AVe mean rather to witness their 
worth, and aim merely at freeing this of excrescence, and making it 
more accessible. 

His books are precious in a high and perennial sense. You can 
not read any paragraph of them, without perceiving that an earnest 
and lofty mind is at work. Earnestness was perhaps his distinguishing 
characteristic; over his every page you seem to see bending the knit 
brow and indomitable eye of the thinker. This man, you feel, is 
conscious that it is a great and awful thing to be alive — to be born 
to that dread inheritance of duty and destiny which awaits every 
spirit of man that arrives on earth. He shakes from him the dust 
of custom; he little heeds the sanctions of reputation; afar off and 
very still, compared with a voice coming from above, he hears the 
trumpetings of fame: calm, determined, irresistible, his foot ever 
seems to press down till it reaches the basal adamant. This earnest- 
ness is made the more impressive from the manifest leaning of his 
mind toward the gloomy and mysterious. Of habits of thought deeply 
reflective, he retired as it were into the inner dwelling of his mind, 
there to ponder the insoluble questions of destiny; like dim curtains, 
painted with shapes of terror, of gloom, and of wierd grandeur, that 
hang round a dusky hall, waving fitfully in the faint light, these ques- 
tions seem to us to have hung round his mind, filling it all with sol- 
emn shadow; he looked on them as on mystic hieroglyphs, but when 
he asked their secret, they remained silent as Isis; he ever turned 
away, saying, in baffled pride, I will compel your answer in eternity, 
yet always turned again, fascinated by their sublime mystery, and 
stung by their calm defiance. No word of frivolity escapes him; he 
tells men sternly what they have to dare, and do, and suffer; he never 
says the burden is light or the foe weak, but the one must be borne 
and the other must be met. You feel in perusing his works as in 
going through a rugged region, where nature, forgetting her gentler 
moods, desires to write upon the tablet of the world her lessons of 
solemnity and power; you perceive that only hardy plants can breathe 
this atmosphere, that here no Arcadian lawns can smile, no Utopian 
palaces arise; there awakens in you that courage, you seem to be con- 
scious of that sense of greatness, which the strong soul knows in the 
neighborhood of crags and forests, where the torrent blends its stern 
murmur with the music of the mountain blast. 

PETER BAYNE, M. A. 



THE POWER OF WILL. 



I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that 
a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that 
nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfil- 
ment. BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



282 



THE VANITY OF HUJXAN PRIDE. 



Oh, why should the spirit of mortal lie proud? 
Like a swift -fleeting meteor, a fast-flying 

cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall 

fade, 
Be scattered around and together lie laid; 
And the young and the old, and the low and 

the high, 
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie. 

The infant, a mother attended and loved, 
The mother, that infant's affection who 

proved, 
The husband, that mother and infant who 

blessed, 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. 

The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, 

in whose eye, 
Shone beauty and pleasure — her triumphs 

are by; 
And the memories of those who have loved 

her and praised 
Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 

The hand of the king that the specter hath 

borne, 
The brow of the priest that the miter hath 

worn, 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the 

brave. 
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the 

grave. 




The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to 

reap, 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats 

up the steep, 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his 
-^ bread, 

* Have faded away like the grass that we 
tread. 




283 



The saint, who enjoyed the communion of 

Heaven, 
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, 
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 
Have quietly mingled their hones in the dust. 

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the 
weed, 

That withers away to let others succeed; 

So the multitude comes, even those we he- 
hold, 

To repeat every tale that has often been 
told. 

For we are the same that our fathers have 

heen; 
We see the same sights that our fathers 

have seen; 
We drink the same stream, and we view the 

same sun, 
And run the same course that our fathers 

have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers 

Mould think; 
From the death that we shrink from, our 

fathers would shrink; 
To the life that we cling to, they also would 

cling; 
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the 

wing. 

They loAed, hut the story we can not unfold; 

They scorned, hut the heart of the haughty 
is cold; 

They grieved, hut no wail from their slum- 
bers will come; 

They joyed, hut the tongue of their gladness 
is dumb. 

They died — ah! they died — and we things 
that are now, 

Who walk on the turf that lies over their 
brow. 

Who make in their dwellings a transient 
abode, 

Meet the things that they met on their pil- 
grimage road. 





284 



Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and 

pain, 
We mingle together in sunshine and rain; 
And the smiles and the tears, the song and 

the dirge, 
Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a 

breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness 

of death, 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the 

shroud: 
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
— WILLIAM KNOX. 



AN IMPENDING DISASTER OFF THE COAST OF NEW ZEALAND. 

The four ships neared, with an accelerated drift, that point from 
whence no seamanship could deliver them, and where death inevit- 
able, cruel, awaited them without hope of escape. The part of the 
coast upon which they were apparently driving was about as dan- 
gerous and impracticable as any in the world. A gigantic barrier of 
black, naked rock, extending for several hundred yards, rose sheer 
from the sea beneath, like the side of an ironclad, up to a height of 
seven or eight hundred feet. No outlying spurs of submerged frag- 
ments broke the immeasureable landward rush of the majestic waves 
towards the frowning face of this world-fragment. Fresh from their 
source, with all the impetus accumulated in their thousand-mile jour- 
ney, they came apparently irresistible. Against this perpendicular 
barrier they hurled themselves with a shock that vibrated far inland, 
and a roar that rose in a dominating diapason over the continuous 
thunder of the tempest-riven sea. High as was the summit of the 
cliff, the spray, hurled upwards by the tremendous impact, rose higher, 
so that the whole front of the great rock was veiled in filmy wreaths 
of foam, hiding its solidity from the seaward view. At either end of 
this vast rampart nothing could be seen but a waste of breakers 
seething, hissing, like the foot of Niagara, and effectually concealing 
the chevaux de frise of rocks which produced such a vortex of tor- 
mented waters. 

Toward this dreadful spot, then, the four vessels were being re- 
sistlessly driven, every moment seeing their chances of escape lessening 
to the vanishing point. Suddenly, as if panic stricken, the ship near- 
est to the "Chance" gave a great sweep round on to the other tack, a 
few fluttering gleams aloft showing that even in that storm they were 
daring to set some sail. 

At last, as the fringes of the back-beaten billows, rearing in per- 
pendicular walls, announced that the extreme limit of safety had been 
reached, the "Chance" made a sharp turn and was instantly lost to 
the view of the other ships. 

— From "Cruise of the Cachalot," by FRANK BULLEN. 





A DAY. 

We two upon the road and never one 
beside, 
(Laugh with me and jest with me 
and swing along the way) 
The high wind in our faces, the open 
world and wide, 
Flash of sun and scent of pine and 
brisk waves on the bay. 
Merry with the draft of morn and keen 
with joy of day, 
Pledge me with a gipsy's toast where 
all the air is wine; 
Reckless vagabonds we two, and fet- 
terless and gay — 
Laugh with me and jest with me, oh, 
little mate of mine! 

We two beside the sail and never other 
one, 
(Lapping wave and lilting wind and 
lazy afternoon) 
All the sea before us in the highway of 
the sun — 
Merry mariners we two, a pirating 
for June! 
Harkening the wordless song the part- 
ing waters croon, 
Fancying the unfound seas beyond 
the sunset line, 
Building fairy lands of clouds, white 
minaret and dune — 
Sing with me and dream with me, 
oh, little lass of mine! 

We two upon the cliff and never other 
there, 
(Blue of night and sheen of stars 
and whisper of the sea) 
Moonshine in the eyes of you and 
Moonlight on your hair — 
Far below the little town where light 
and laughter be. 
All the world went by with day, and, 
silent moon folk we 
Swayed across the rim of night to 
distances divine; 
Hands of you and eyes of you and lips 
of you for me — 
Little mate and little lass and little 
love of mine! 
— THEODOSIA GARRISON. 



285 





286 

It seems to me that a thinking - man, with the ambition of a mouse, 
should never fear death, because once dead, he becomes wiser than all 
the living remnant of the human race. — CUTLIFFE HYNE. 



IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT. 



"If I should die to-night, 
My friends would look upon my quiet face 
Before they laid it in its resting-place 
And deem that death had left it almost fair; 
And, laying snow-white flowers against my 

hair, 
Would smooth it down with tearful tender- 
ness, 
And fold my hands with lingering caress, 
Poor hands so empty and so cold to-night. 

"If I should die to-night, 
My friends would call to mind with loving 

thought 
Some kindly deed the icy hand had wrought, 
Some gentle words the frozen lips had said, 
Errands on which the willing feet had sped; 
The memory of my selfishness and pride, 
My hasty words would all he pvit aside, 
And so I should he mourned and loved to- 
night. 

"If I should die to-night, 
This poor, still form would he love's kindly 

shrine 
Where friendly hands would touch these 

hands of mine; 
And sweet-voiced Pity standing pensive near, 
Would drop the tribute of her saintly tear 
On this cold clay. And friends would flock 

about 
As if to share the lonely path without 
That would be mine — if I should die to-night! 

"If I should die to-night, 
Even hearts estranged would turn once more 

to me, 
Recalling other days remorsefully; 
The eyes that chill me with averted glance 
Would look upon me as of yore, perchance, 
And soften, in the old familiar way, 
For who could war with dumb, unconscious 

clay? 
So I might rest, forgiven of all to-night. 



"Oh, friends! I pray to-night, 
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow; 
The way is lonely, let me feel them now; 
Think gently of me; I am travel worn, 
My faltering feet are pierced with many a 

thorn. 
Forgive, oh, hearts estranged, forgive, I 

plead ; 
When dreamless rest is mine, I shall not 

need 
The tenderness for which I long to-night." 

This poem has been credited to many au- 
thors, but appears most frequently over the 
names of Father Ryan, Robert Meyers, and 
Miss Bessie Smith. The claim of Father 
Ryan appears to be the strongest. The 
present compiler found the lines uncredited 
in a scrap book made up prior to 1857. 




PRAISE OF DEATH. 



Thanatos, thy praise I sing, 
Thou immortal, youthful king! 
Glorious offerings I will bring; 
For, men say, thou hast no shrine, 
And I find thou art divine 
As no other god; thy rage 
Doth preserve the Golden Age. 
What we blame is thy delay: 
Cut the flowers ere they decay! 

Come, we would, not derogate, 

Age and nipping pains we hate; 

Take us at our best estate! 

While the head burns with the crown, 

In the battle, strike us down! 

At the bride-feast do not think 

From thy summons we would shrink; 

We would give our latest kiss 

To a life still warm with bliss. 

Come, and take us to the train 
Of dead maidens on the plain 
Where white lilies have no stain; 
Take us to the youths that thou 
Xiov'st to choose, of fervid brow, 
Unto whom thy dreaded name 
Hath been simply known as Fame; 
AVith these unpolluted things 
He our endless revellings! 

—MICHAEL FIELD. 





288 

A SEA HORROR. 

Left bare by the fallen tide, the shoal revealed its acres of hidden 
fangs, producing upon the mind of the observer an indescribable im- 
pression of accumulated agonies. Rocks massed together in confu- 
sion form a monstrous monument, defy reason, yet maintain equilib- 
rium. Here is something more than strength; it is eternity. But 
order is wanting. The wild tumult of waves seem to have passed into 
a wilderness of stone. It is like a tempest petrified and fixed forever. 
This architecture has its terrible masterpieces, of which the Douvres 
rock was one. The sea had fashioned and perfected it with a sinister 
solicitude. The -snarling waters licked it into shape. It was hideous, 
treacherous, dark, full of horrors. It had a complete system of sub- 
marine caverns ramifying and losing themselves in unfathomed 
depths. Some of the orifices of this labyrinth of passages were left 
exposed by the low tides. A man might enter there, but at his risk 
and peril. Hard upon the outer fringe of this formidable reef the 
long drowned man lay wedged between two smaller boulders. The 
frame of the ribs was filled with crabs. Some heart had once beat 
there. The green mould of the sea had settled round the sockets of 
the eyes. * * * The teeth grinned. The sombre side of laughter 
is that strange mockery of its expression which is peculiar to a human 
skull. —VICTOR HUGO. 



'IXYICTUS.' 



Out of the night that covers me 

Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud, 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
Looms but the horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 
Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how straight the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll: 

I am the master of my fate; 
I am the captain of my soul! 

— WM. ERNEST HENLEY. 



The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is 
a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, 
which is the good man that comes to relieve it. 

— Oliver Goldsmith. 



289 



AMBITION'S STREAM. 



Clear and bright, from the snowy height, 
The joyous stream to the plain descended; 

Rich sands of gold were washed and rolled 
To the turbid marsh where its pure life 
ended. 

From stainless snow to the moor below, 
The heart like the brook has a waning 
mission ; 
The buried dream in life's sluggish stream 
Is golden sand of our young ambition. 

— JAMES BOYLE O'REILLY. 





HEROINES. 

The maid who binds her warrior's sash, 

And smiling, all her pain dissembles, 
The while beneath the drooping lash 

One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles; 
Though Heaven alone records the tear, 

And Fame shall never know her story, 
Her heart has shed a drop as dear 

As ever dewed the field of glory. 

The wife who girds her husband's sword, 

'Mid little ones who weep and wonder, 
And bravely speaks the cheering word 

What though her heart be rent asunder; 
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear 

The bolts of war around him rattle, 
Has shed as sacred blood as e'er 

Was poured upon the field of battle. 

The mother who conceals her grief 

While to her heart her son she presses, 
Then breathes a few brave words and brief, 

Kisses the patriot brow she blesses; 
With no one but her secret God 

To know the pain that weighs upon her, 
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod 

Received on Freedom's field of Honor. 

— Anon. 



290 

THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. 

To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like be- 
holding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. 
The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. 
There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconscious- 
ness, of creation. There, in the awful silence and darkness, the rude 
first forms of life, phantomlike, demonical, pursue their horrible in- 
stincts. The solitudes of the sea are peculiarly dismal. The things 
which pass there seem to have no relation to the human race; their 
objects are unknown. 

— VICTOR HUGO. 



BALLAD OF THE BROKEN TROTH. 



"Aye me!" she shivering said, 

And gaz'd on the sunlit skies aboon, 

Where, claspt in the scorching arms of noon, 

There floated, cold and white, 

The day-ghost of the waning moon, 

All in its hearse -shroud dight. 

All in its hearse- shroud dight. 

" 'Tis a passing thought," she said, 
"Of last year's broken troth, I ween — " 
(And I would ye had seen her pale face then, 
Ye women who toy with the hearts of men) — 
"Which e'en as a mockery floats between 
The rising and the setting 
Of this year's love — what might have been, 
To keep me from forgetting, 
To keep me from forgetting." 

"But I will forget," she said, 

"Ere the rosebuds ope on another June," 

And she warbled a snatch of a lancer's tune, 

Rounding it off with laughter, 

But the pale, cold day-ghost of the moon, 

Wrapped in the scorching arms of noon, 

Haunted her ever after — 

Haunted her ever after. 

— ORELIA KEY BELL. 



SLEEP. 

Sleep is not always sent upon missions of refreshment; sleep is 
sometimes the secret chamber in which Death arranges his machinery; 
sleep is sometimes that deep, mysterious atmosphere in which the 
human spirit is slowly unsettling its wings for flight from earthly tene- 
ments. — De QUINCEY. 



291 
IilFE. 

What is life? Darkness and formless vacancy for a beginning; 
then next a dim lotus of human consciousness, finding itself afloat 
upon the bosom of waters without a shore; then a few sunny smiles 
and many tears; a little love and infinite strife; whisperings from para- 
dise and fierce mockeries from the anarchy of chaos; dust and ashes, 
and once more darkness circling round, as if from the beginning, and 
in this way rounding or making an island of our fantastic existence, — 
THAT is human life, THAT the inevitable amount of man's laughter 
and his tears — of what he suffers and he does — of his motions this 
way and that way, to the right or to the left, backwards or forwards — 
of all his seeming realities and all his absolute negations — his shad- 
owy pomps and his pompous shadows — of whatsoever he thinks, finds, 
makes or mars, creates or animates, loves, hates, or in dread hope an- 
ticipates. So it is, so it has been, so it will be forever and ever. 

— De QUINCEY. 



THE STIRRUP-CUP. 



My short and happy day is done, 
The long and dreary night comes on, 
And at my door the pale horse stands 
To carry me to unknown lands. 

His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof, 
Sounds dreadful as a gathering storm; 
And I must leave this sheltering roof 
And joys of life so soft and warm. 

Tender and warm the joys of life — 
Good friends, the faithful and the true; 
My rosy children and my wife, 
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view — 

So sweet to kiss so fair to view; 
The night comes down, and lights burn blue; 
And at my door the pale horse stands 
To bear me forth to unknown lands. 

—JOHN HAY. 




THE AGE OF THIRTY- SIX. 



Though it seems young by comparison with men of great age like 
me, yet it's some way through life for all that; and the mere fools and 
fiddlers are beginning to grow weary and to look old. Yes, Sir, by 
six and thirty, if a man be a follower of God's laws, he should have 
made himself a home and a good name to live by * * * * * 
and his works as the world says — should begin to follow him. 

— Robert L. Stevenson. 



292 

THE PERVERSITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Childhood cannot be esteemed happy, as being an age that, apart 
from the troubles of teething, is a continued lamentation and a cry. 
Educational traditions sit as a nightmare on the elastic spirits of boy- 
hood. Youth and early manhood bring heat of blood and immature 
judgment to cope with the perilous temptations of the unknown world. 
Over professional life in manhood broods an universal Grundyism; and 
commercial life is crenellated by a corroding covetousness. 

— D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 



THE HELL-HOUND RACE. 

I think that the Devil must come to earth sometimes, and marry, 
and have children; whence the Gnawbit race. I don't believe that 
the man had a spark of human feeling in him. I don't believe that 
any tale of man or woman's woe would ever have wrung one tear from 
that cold eye, or drawn a pang from that hard heart. I believe that 
he was a perfectly senseless, pitiless brute and beast, suffered, for 
some unknown purpose, to dwell here above, instead of being ever- 
lastingly kept down below, for the purpose of tormenting. 

—GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 



BEHIND THE VEIL. 



Here, amid the climes diurnal, 

Just before the veil I wait, 
Soon to hear the voice Supernal 

Sounding though the vaults of Fate; 
Soon, sweet Hope, immortal youth, 
Leaping from the shrines of Truth, 
Woo each warm anticipation 
O'er the portals of sensation. 

Did Jehovah but design me 

For a moment's dream of time? 
To these perishing joys confine me, 
Barr'd from yon eternal clime? 
Is this musing mind a breath, 
Lost in all -victorious death, 
Frail as dust and vapor flying, 
When these mortal powers are dying? 

Soon this frame will be a plunder, 
Crumbling for the worms below; 

Must I, as it sinks asunder, 
All to mold' ring darkness go? 

All of conscious life bereft, 

At my utmost limit left, 

Born to quench each warm sensation, 

Deep in drear annihilation? 



293 




Is not life a path allow'd me, 

Up to life beyond the sky? 
Why hath God with thought endow'd me, 

If the powers of thought must die? 
Happy, were I made to be, 
Jjike the brute from reason free, 
Gay amid the seasons o'er me, 
Heedless of the doom before me. 

No; reviler! scorn and error 
Ne'er shall steal my trust away; 

Rescued, raised from mortal terror, 
I shall triumph o'er decay. 

No; my soul is not a breath, 

Not the passive prey of death; 

From my Maker I enjoy it, 

Storms of Fate shall not destroy it. 

Spirit; that's my name imperial, 

Clay is but a cumbrous pall, 
But the seed of life ethereal, 
Slumbering for the trumpet's call. 
As the glad maternal earth 
Warms the genial seed to birth, 
So this frame to dust descending, 
Shrines the germ of life unending. 

Not for momentary being, 

Cursed with consciousness in vain; 
Not for joys forever fleeing; 

Not for throbs of guilt and pain, 
He hath made this soul for bliss, 
Harmonized her powers for this, 
Winged each Godlike aspiration 
O'er the bourne of desolation. 

This warm thirst for life eternal, 

This impatience here to stay, 
Longing for a home Supernal, 
Blissful regions far away; 
These, bright world, my tokens be, 
Tokens that I rise to thee — 
Burst the coils I strive to sever, 
Wing me there — to live forever! 

—JOSEPH SALYARDS. 




294 

AFTER DEATH IN ARABIA. 



"He made life — and He takes it — but in- 
stead gives more; praise the Restorer, Al- 
Mu'hid!" 

He who died at Azan sends 
This to comfort faithful friends. 
Faithful friends! it lies, I know, 
Pale and white and cold as snow; 
And ye say, "Abdullah's dead!" 
Weeping at my feet and head; 
I can see your falling tears, 
I can hear your cries and prayers; 
Yet I smile, and whisper this — 
I am not that thing you kiss; 
Cease your tears and let it lie; 
It was mine, it is not I." 

"Sweet friends! what the women lave, 

For its last bed in the grave, 

Is a tent which I am quitting, 

Is a cage from which, at last, 

lake a hawk my soul hath passed. 

Love the inmate, not the room; 

The wearer, not the garb; the plume 

Of the falcon, not the bars 

Which kept him from the splendid stars. 

"Loving friends! be wise, and dry 
Straightway every weeping eye; 
What ye lift upon the bier 
Is not worth a wistful tear. 
'Tis an empty sea-shell, one 
Out of which the pearl is gone; 
The shell is broken, it lies there; 
The pearl, the all, the soul, is here." 

— SIR EDWIN ARNOLD. 



RELIGION THE SALVATION OF LIBERTY. 

There is some probability that all this noise which is made now- 
adays about liberty may end in the suppression of liberty. * * * * 
If liberty is to be saved, it will not be by the doubters, the men of 
science, or the materialists; it will be by religious conviction, by the 
faith of individuals who believe that God wills man to be free, but also 
pure; it will be by the seekers after holiness, by those old-fashioned 
pious persons who speak of immortality and eternal life, and prefer 
the soul to the whole world; it will be by the enfranchised children of 
the ancient faith of the human race. 

— HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL 



295 



THE MARSEILLES HYMN. 



Ye sons of freedom, wake to glory! 

Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! 
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, 

Behold their tears and hear their cries! 
Shall hateful tyrants, mischiefs breeding, 

With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, 

Affright and desolate the land, 
While peace and liberty lie bleeding! 

To arms! to arms! ye brave! 
Th' avenging sword unsheathe; 

March on! march on! all hearts resolved 
On victory or death. 

Now, now the dangerous storm is rolling, 
Which treacherous kings confederate raise ; 

The dogs of war, let loose are howling, 
And lo! our fields and cities blaze; 

And shall we basely view the ruin, 

While lawless force, with guilty stride, 
Spreads desolation far and wide, 

With crimes and blood his hands embruing? 
To arms! to arms! ye brave! 

The patriot sword unsheathe; 

March on! march on! all hearts resolved 
On liberty or death. 

O, Liberty! can man resign thee, 

Once having felt thy generous flame? 

Can dungeons, bolts, or bars confine thee! 
Or whips thy noble spirit tame? 

Too long the world has wept, bewailing 
That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield, 
But Freedom is our sword and shield, 

And all their arts are unavailing. 
To arms! to arms! ye brave! 

Th' avenging sword unsheathe; 

March on! march on! all hearts resolved 
On victory or death! 

— ROUGET DE LISLE. 



RUDE LICENSE OF DESPOTISM. 

I have ever found that in the most despotic countries the com- 
mon people have a sort of rude license accorded them; whereas in 
states where there is freedom, authority gives a man leave to think, 
but it very carefully ties his hands and feet whenever he has a mind 
to frisk. —GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 



296 



"ABIDE WITH ME.' 



Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide; 
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide; 
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me! 

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day, 
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away; 
Change and decay in all around I see; 
Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me! 

Not a brief glance, I beg, a passing word, 
But as Thou dwelt with Thy disciples, Lord, 
Familiar, condescending, patient, free, 
Come, not to sojourn, but abide with me! 

Come not in terrors, as the King of Kings; 
But kind and good, with healing in Thy 

wings; 
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea: 
Come, Friend of sinners, and abide with me! 

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile, 
And though rebellious and perverse, mean- 
while 
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee. 
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me! 

I need Thy presence every passing hour; 
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's 

power ? 
Who like Thyself my Guide and Stay can be? 
Through cloud and sunshine, O, abide with 

me! 




I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless, 
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness; 
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy 

victory? 
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me! 

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes, 
Shine through the gloom, and point me to 

the skies; 
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain 

shadows flee; 
In life and death, O Lord, abide with me! 

— W. H. LYTE. 




297 



DISINCHANTMENT. 



Blue island in the distant sea! 

How often have I sat alone, 
My hands crossed idly on my knee, 
And watched the white gulls, and to thee 

Would gladly on their wings have flown. 

For thou to me wert fairy-land; 

And as I gazed on thee I dreamed 
What soft sea-winds thy hlossoms fanned, 
What silver waters kissed the sand 

That on thy sunny beaches gleamed. 

What found I when I reached thy side? 

Rough shingle with wet sea -wrack spread, 
Black rocks, where rows of fish-nets dried, 
An old hulk washed up by the tide, 

And gull's nests, with the birds all fled. 




Blue island in the distant sea! 

I turn my gaze to thee no more; 
Yet sigh to think how fair would be 
The old sweet luring dream of thee, 

If I had never touched thy shore! 

— MARION DOUGLASS. 



BRITANNIA'S SAILORS. 




Queen'd on a rock, Britannia has her seat, 
And wields a power none may lightly 
brave ; 
The vanquished ocean comes to kiss her feet, 
And bear her colours, proud to be her 
slave. 
The savage winds that prowl around her 
throne, 
Jealous of others, further her decrees, 
And convoy treasure from the utmost zone 

Secure along her highway o'er the seas. 
Thus is she glorious, and supreme, and 
great — 
But you have won her all whereof we 
boast — 
Her wealth, her majesty, her wide estate, 

Her humbled foes, the safety of her coast — 
Yours is the hand to which she gave her 
fate, 
And yours the love to which she clings the 
most. 

— UNIDENTIFIED. 



298 

AN AUTUMN PICTURE. 

The woods were beginning to assume the first fair livery of 
autumn, when it was beautiful without decay. The lime and the 
larch had not yet dropped a golden leaf, and the burnished beeches 
flamed in the sun. Every now and then an occasional oak or elm 
rose, still as full of deep green foliage as if it were midsummer; while 
the dark verdure of the pines sprang up with effective contrast amid 
the gleaming and resplendent chestnuts. 

BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 



THE ECLIPSE OF POETRY. 



Beloved Art! beneath thy wings I creep, 
Worn with a world where thou canst be 

decried ; 

Thou, too, my Beautiful, art thrust aside 

Where dreams and shadows vague oblivion 

keep. 

Here dost thou sit — thy shame is glorified, 

Thy grief a queen's. Thy tears, if thou 

shouldst weep, 
Were pearls, which in life's acid we would 
steep, 
Making it precious; but thou sitt'st in 
pride. 
Dost thou recall how once thy leaf of bay 
Outweighed the proudest plaudits of man- 
kind? 
Dost thou remember still thine ancient sway, 
Though now the world seems to thy 
beauty blind? 
Or dost thou dream of that more glorious 
day 
When thou thy larger sovereignty shall 
find? 

— ADA FOSTER ALDEN. 

EFFICACIOUS ADVICE. 

Lareveillere Lepaux, the member of the French Directory, in- 
vented a new religion of Theophilanthropy, which seems, in fact, to 
have been an organized Rousseauism.- He wished to impose it on 
France, but finding that, in spite of his passionate endeavors, he made 
but little progress, he sought the advice of Talleyrand. 

"I am not surprised," said Talleyrand, "at the difficulty you expe- 
rience. It is no easy matter to introduce a new religion. But I will 
tell you what I recommend you to do. I recommend you to be cruci- 
fied, and to rise again on the third day." 

— Taken from Goldwin Smith's "Proposed Substitutes for Religion." 





299 
THE TWO MYSTERIES. 



We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so 
deep and still, 

The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek 
so pale and chill; 

The lids that will not lift again, though we 
may call and call, 

The strange, white solitude of peace that set- 
tles over all. 

We know not what it means, dear, this deso- 
late heart-pain; 

This dread to take our daily way, and walk 
in it again; 

We know not to what other sphere the loved 
who leave us go, 

Nor why we're left to wonder still; nor why 
we do not know. 

But this we know: Our loved and dead, if 

they should come this day — 
Should come and ask us, "What is life?" not 

one of us could say. 
Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can 

be; 
Yet oh, how sweet it is to us, this life we 

live and see! 

Then might they say — these vanished ones — 
and blessed is the thought! 

"So death is sweet to us, beloved! though 
we may tell ye naught; 

We may not tell it to the quick — this mys- 
tery of death — 

Ye may not tell us, if ye would, the mystery 
of breath." 



The child who enters life comes not with 

knowledge or intent; 
So those who enter death must go as little 

children sent. 
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is 

overhead ; 
And as life is to the living, so death is to the 

dead. 

—WALT WHITMAN. 




300 

TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS. 



Tell me, ye winged winds, that round my 

pathway roar, 
Do you not know some spot where mortals 

weep no more? 
Some lone and pleasant dell, some valley in 

the west, 
Where free from toil and pain the weary 

soul may rest? 
The loud wind softened to a whisper low, 
And sighed for pity as it answered — No. 

Tell me, thou mighty deep, whose billows 

round me play, 
Knowest thou some favored spot, some 

island far away, 
Where weary man may find the bliss for 

which he sighs? 
Where sorrow never lives, and friendship 

never dies? 
The loud waves rolling in perpetual flow, 
Stopped for awhile, and sighed to answer — 

No. 

And thou — serenest moon, that with such 
holy face 

Dost look upon the earth asleep in night's 
embrace; 

Hast thou not seen some spot, where miser- 
able man 

Might find a happier lot? 

Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe, 

And a voice, sweet, but sad, responded — No. 

Tell me, my secret soul, Oh, tell me Hope 

and Faith, 
Is there no resting place from sorrow, sin 

and death? 
Is there no happy spot where mortals may 

be blessed, 
Where grief may find a balm, and weariness 

a rest? 
Faith, Hope and Love, best boons to mortals 

given, 
Waved their bright wings and answered, — 

Yes — In Heaven! 

— AUTHOR UNIDENTIFIED. 



301 



LAUGH, AND THE WORLD LAUGHS 
WITH YOU. 



Laugh, and the world laughs with you, 

AVeep, and you weep alone, 
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, 

But has sorrow enough of its own. 

Sing, and the hills will answer; 

Sigh, it is lost on the air; 
The echoes bound to a joyful sound, 

But shrink from a voicing care. 

Rejoice, and men will seek you; 

Grieve, and they turn and go; 
They want full measure of your pleasure, 

But they do not need your woe. 

Be glad, and your friends are many; 

Be sad, and you lose them all; 
There are none to decline your doctored wine, 

But alone you must drink life's gall. 

Feast, and your halls are crowded; 

Fast, and the world goes by; 
Succeed and give, and it helps you life, 

But no man can help you die. 

There is room in the halls of pleasure 

For a large and a lordly train, 
But one by one we must all file on 

Through the narrow aisles of pain. 

— ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. 



UNBELIEF AND MODERN CIVILIZATION. 

Ages of the most advanced refinement have not unfrequently 
been ages of the most open unbelief. At the zenith of their civiliza- 
tion nations have been at the nadir of their faith. There has been 
an absorbing luxury, and luxury makes the heart soft, and effeminate, 
and vulnerable; there has been an eager race for wealth, and the love 
of wealth deadens all the soul's finer sensibilities; there have been 
unbounded means of gratification, and selfish pleasure makes men 
e:.rthy, and cruel, and coarse. Entangled in complex interests, amused 
by incessant frivolities, stimulated by reckless excitements, beguiled 
by the dazzling treacheries of a refined immorality, for such ages, the 
horizon of life has dwindled into an ever-narrowing circle, and amid 
the dust and glare of material interests, all heavenly hopes, all God- 
ward aspirations have faded utterly away. The spectacle is full of 
warning for ourselves. — REV. F. W. FARRAR. 



302 

THE SNOW STORM. 

Moor and highland, field and common, cliff and vale and water- 
course — over all the rolling folds of misty white were flung. There 
was nothing square and jagged left, there was nothing perpendicular; 
all the rugged lines were eased, and all the breeches smoothly filled. 
Curves and mounds, and rounded heavings took the place of rock 
and stump; and all the country looked as if a woman's hand had been 
on it. In the great white desolution distance was a mocking vision; 
hills looked nigh and valleys far when hills were far and valleys 
nigh, and all creation seemed embowered in a great foam flood of 
waters frozen into sleep. — BL.ACKMORE. 



WAITING. 



Serene, I fold my hands and wait, 
Nor care for winds, or tide, or sea; 

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, 
For lo! my own shall come to me. 

I stay my haste, I make delays, 
For what avails this eager pace? 

I stand amid the eternal ways, 

And what is mine shall know my face. 




Asleep, awake, by night or day, 
f~ J The friends I seek are seeking me; 
No wind can drive my bark astray, 
Nor change the tide of destiny. 

What matter if I stand alone? 

I wait with joy the coming years; 
My heart shall reap where it has sown, 

And garner up its fruit of tears. 




The waters know their own, and draw 

The brook that springs in yonder height; 

So flows the good with equal law 
Unto the soul of pure delight. 



The stars come nightly to the sky; 

The tidal wave unto the sea; 
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, 

Can keep my own away from me. 

— JOHN BURROUGHS. 



303 



THE PANG OF THE COMFORTER. 



You will find that just in proportion as one is fitted to comfort, 
is his own liability to overwhelming distress. To be a real comforter 
a person must have profound sympathies; but profound sympathies 
are always in association with keen sensibilities, and keen sensibili- 
ties expose their possessor to a depth of anguish utterly unintelligible 
to ordinary mortals. As is the capacity to be a heavenly comforter, sc 
is the capacity to be an awful sufferer. 

— COULSON KERN AH AN. 



UNFORGOTTEN LOVE. 



Forget thee, clear? 
God knows how in the silence of the night, 

Forgetful of how tired I am, 

I think of thee till, like a soothing balm, 
Sleep, drooping on my eyelids, puts 

All thought to flight. 



Forget thee, dear? 

God knows I have no longer any choice! 
Love's seal is set upon me, nor can I 
With placid -beating heart again deny 

The mastery and magic of thy voice. 

Forget thee, dear? 

God knows I would not if I could, 

For sweeter far to me has been the pain 
Of love unsatisfied than all the vain 

And ill-spent years I lived before we met. 




Forget thee, dear? 
God knows, if I were lying dead to-day, 
To ashes turned in a forgotten grave, 
And to my dust He mercifully gave 
The power to speak one word — thy name 
I'd say J — ANON. 



MENACE OF MONEY WORSHIP IN AMERICA. 

Where an entire people, free and untrammeled from extraneous 
influences and dangers and unimpeded by internal obstacles, devote 
themselves wholly and exclusively to amassing wealth, where their 
aspirations tend to nothing higher, where their ideal is nothing loftier, 
those individuals who achieve the most pronounced success in acquir- 
ing the largest fortunes not only become the most powerful, but also 
the most esteemed and respected of their fellow-citizens, however 
little their intelligence and moral qualities may justify it. 

— A DIPLOMAT. 



JqjOl rUTJTJTJTJTJTJT. rUTXLTlJTJTJTJ^ 

Is FINIS. 



The end draws near. By Fates unseen directed 

Our paths diverging tend. 
To lives monotonous the unexpected 

Comes as a friend; 
While for the moment joyous smiles of meeting 

The gathering shades dispel, — 
Ave et Vale! Lo! the ancient greeting, 

Hail, and Farewell! 

A moment more! and sadness follows after 

In bursts of keen regret, 
That put to silence all the happy laughter 

Wherewith we met. 
The past is dead, the present swiftly fading, 

And in the future dwell 
Hopes faint and few, our longing glance evad- 
ing; 

Hail, and Farewell! 

The time has come! 'mid alien scenes and faces 

Our lessening lives must lie, 
And pass henceforth through solitary places 

Beneath a stormy sky. 
Clasp hands, dear friend! against our best en- 
deavor 
The tides of Memory swell; 
Part we as those who part indeed forever; — 2) 
$5 Hail, and Farewell! E> 

^ —AUTHOR UNIDENTIFIED. || 

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